St. Joseph’s Island, MS 
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Early Proposals and Delays, 1831–1854
Congress first addressed the need for a navigational aid in this region with an appropriation on March 3, 1831, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to provide, by contract, for building a lighthouse on St. Joseph’s Island or another suitable location off Pascagoula Bay. The $7,000 appropriation, however, was ultimately diverted to construct a lighthouse on nearby Round Island, reflecting early doubts about the feasibility of building on St. Joseph’s itself.
Those doubts were well founded. As early as 1829, an Army engineer had warned that a fixed lighthouse could not survive on the island and proposed instead a light mounted on a boat. His recommendation was ignored, but it foreshadowed decades of engineering difficulties. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, St. Joseph’s Island remained unlighted, even as maritime traffic through Mississippi Sound increased with the growth of coastal trade and steam navigation.
The renewed push for a lighthouse came amid the railroad speculation of the late 1830s. Plans to connect Mobile with a proposed port at Bay St. Louis (then Shieldsboro) raised hopes that St. Joseph’s Island would become a key navigational reference point. Congress appropriated funds for a lighthouse near the railroad’s western terminus, but the Panic of 1837 collapsed the project. The funds lay idle for nearly a decade before being reassigned to other stations, including Merrill’s Shell Bank.
By 1851, local steamship operators took matters into their own hands, erecting a day beacon on St. Joseph’s Island to guide vessels between Mississippi Sound and Lake Borgne. That same year, the collector of customs at Mobile urged the Provisional Lighthouse Board to establish a proper revolving light about twenty feet above the water. Congress responded with an appropriation of $10,000 on August 3, 1854, specifically for a lighthouse on St. Joseph’s Island.
Construction and Early Failure, 1855–1860
Despite the new appropriation, progress was slow. In 1855 and again in 1857, the Lighthouse Board reported that it had been unable to obtain clear title and jurisdiction for the site. Real estate disputes and unclear ownership delayed construction even as materials were procured and plans prepared. When the Board finally believed it had secured title, construction proceeded—but the optimism proved premature.
By 1859, the lighthouse structure had been erected but could not yet be occupied. The land on which it stood did not legally belong to the United States, and more alarmingly, the tower was already sinking into the mud. The island itself was steadily washing away. The situation became so untenable that in 1860 the U.S. Attorney initiated condemnation proceedings, bringing the entire 200-acre island under federal control.
The lighthouse was finally illuminated on January 1, 1861. Barely nine days later, Mississippi seceded from the Union.
Civil War Disruption and Restoration, 1861–1865
During the Civil War, St. Joseph’s Island Lighthouse passed briefly into Confederate service. Keeper Walter Reding remained at his post under the Confederate States Light-House Bureau until June 30, 1861. The lens was eventually removed and transported to Bay St. Louis, where it was recovered by Union troops in late 1862. Unlike many Gulf Coast stations, St. Joseph’s Island Lighthouse suffered little direct wartime destruction; nature, rather than armies, remained its greatest adversary.
Following the war, the federal government moved quickly to restore navigation aids. By early 1865, repairs were underway at numerous Gulf Coast lights, including St. Joseph’s Island. Max Bonzano, Acting Lighthouse Engineer in New Orleans, oversaw most of these repairs and on March 24, 1865, he informed Major General E.R.S. Canby: “My arrangements for the re-establishment of St. Joseph’s Light are now complete. The materials and workmen for the execution of the repairs, the light keeper, his family and assistant sent over to the island on Monday next the 27th inst. in one of the lighthouse launches, the vessel ordered to remain with them until the guard you intend to order there shall have arrived.”
On April 8, 1865, a Notice to Mariners announced that a fixed white light of the fifth order would be exhibited from the lighthouse beginning April 10. The dioptric Fresnel lens stood thirty-five feet above sea level and was visible for approximately nine miles under ordinary conditions.
In June, Bonzano informed Canby that the guard he had ordered for St. Joseph’s Island Lighthouse was no longer needed, but, if he desired to keep them there for military reasons, Keeper Charles Henderson would continue to accommodate them.
Engineering Struggles and Relocation, 1865–1873
Even as the light resumed service, the station’s physical condition deteriorated. The wooden dwelling rested on nine brick columns founded on timbers laid directly on the island’s surface. Under the weight of the structure, these timbers sank several feet into the soft mud. The island was regularly overwashed by high tides, and inspectors noted that a pole could be pushed twenty feet into the soil with ease.
Timber foundations renewed in 1864 were nearly destroyed by marine worms within three years. By 1867, six of the brick columns had been washed away and replaced with temporary wooden shores. Repairs were repeatedly interrupted, including by outbreaks of yellow fever. Engineers warned that maintaining the station would require rebuilding its foundation every two years unless a new site could be found.
In 1868, after significant erosion threatened the structure, the lighthouse was moved approximately twenty-five feet inland. Nine piles were driven nearly sixty feet deep, encased in brick masonry and concrete to protect against decay and worms. A breakwater was constructed to shield the foundation from southeast winds, and the space beneath the dwelling was filled with concrete. This work was considered exceptionally substantial and was expected to preserve the lighthouse for many years.
Additional protection followed in the early 1870s. A palmetto-pile breakwater, built between 1872 and 1873, surrounded the lighthouse on three sides. Palmetto wood, resistant to sea worms, was selected as the only viable material in this latitude. At the time, engineers believed the danger from shoreline erosion had been successfully addressed.
Decline and Abandonment, 1878–1890
The optimism proved short-lived. By 1878, the foundation was again in an unsafe condition. Concrete surrounding the piers had broken apart, ballast had been carried away by the sea, and the breakwater allowed waves to pass freely between its piles. The lighthouse stood surrounded by water, unprotected on its western side, even as it remained an important navigational aid for vessels traveling between Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay, Pensacola Bay, and New Orleans via Lake Pontchartrain.
Repeated annual reports from 1879 and 1880 echoed the same warnings and recommended replacing the station with a fourth-order screw-pile lighthouse located in deeper water south of the channel. Temporary measures—new breakwaters, sheet-pile dams, and foundation repairs—kept the structure standing, but the underlying problem remained: St. Joseph’s Island itself was disappearing.
By 1886, inspections concluded that it was more economical to build a new light on nearby Grand Island or on the mainland than to continue defending the doomed site. In 1887, the Lighthouse Board declared it impracticable to rebuild or save the station and recommended replacing it with a new lighthouse at Lower Point Clear.
The station was officially condemned in 1888 and effectively abandoned the following year. Its illuminating apparatus and lantern were removed, replaced temporarily by an eight-day lantern mounted on the roof. The keeper lived at Bay St. Louis and visited the station by boat. On September 1, 1889, the temporary light was discontinued, and the new Lake Borgne Lighthouse assumed its navigational role. The remaining dwelling served only as a daymark.
Legacy
All this effort—spanning nearly sixty years—had been expended to maintain a relatively minor channel light whose fifth-order lens was never visible more than eleven miles. Nature ultimately prevailed. The abandoned structure survived only a few more years before storms, including the hurricane of 1893, washed away what remained. Today, submerged pilings mark the location on nautical charts.
St. Joseph’s Island Lighthouse stands as one of the most instructive examples in American lighthouse history: a testament to perseverance, engineering ingenuity, and the limits of human effort when confronted with an unstable and vanishing landscape.
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