Volusia Bar, FL 
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The story of Volusia Bar Lighthouse is inseparable from the history of Florida’s St. Johns River, a waterway whose unusual northward flow shaped the economic and social development of the state. Rising in the marshes of present-day Indian River County and winding more than 300 miles to the Atlantic Ocean at Jacksonville, the St. Johns River served as Florida’s principal interior highway long before the arrival of railroads or paved roads. Along its course, the river spreads repeatedly into broad lakes—among them Lake George, one of the largest freshwater lakes in Florida. At the southern end of Lake George, where the waters of the St. Johns narrow abruptly and re-enter a confined channel, lay one of the most dangerous obstacles on the entire river: Volusia Bar.
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Volusia Bar formed at the point where the river entered the lake, creating a shallow, shifting shoal with a narrow and unreliable channel. Although the river below Palatka could accommodate increasingly large steamboats by the late nineteenth century, Volusia Bar remained the shoalest point on the river between Jacksonville and Sanford, the head of navigation for large steamers. With low, featureless shorelines offering no natural landmarks, and with fog frequently rolling across Lake George, the entrance to the channel was nearly impossible to locate with confidence at night or in poor weather. Yet this narrow passage was vital. Much of central Florida—an area encompassing portions of five counties and tens of thousands of residents—depended upon Volusia Bar for the movement of supplies, mail, agricultural products, and passengers.
Steamboats had been traveling the St. Johns River since the 1820s, initially for military purposes during the Second Seminole War and later for commerce and tourism. By the mid-nineteenth century, entrepreneurs such as Jacob Brock and Louis Coxetter had established regular passenger and freight service between Jacksonville and inland communities like Enterprise and Sanford. After the Civil War, the river entered a golden age of steamboating. Improved vessels, aggressive advertising of Florida’s climate, and the construction of grand hotels along the river transformed the St. Johns into a tourist corridor. By the 1880s, as many as fifty steamers regularly plied the Jacksonville–Sanford route, passing through Lake George and across Volusia Bar.
Despite this traffic, federal authorities were slow to acknowledge the need for navigational aids at Volusia Bar. Steamboat pilots petitioned the Lighthouse Board as early as 1872, requesting lighted beacons to mark the channel. These requests were repeatedly denied. Inspectors argued that commerce above Lake George was limited, that steamers rarely ran at night, and that the shallow depth of the bar rendered the river effectively “unnavigable” for ordinary vessels. Local pilots and residents strongly disagreed. They maintained their own beacons, paid light attendants out of pocket, and endured frequent groundings and near disasters.
The government did take limited action. In 1880, a submerged jetty was constructed at Volusia Bar to confine and deepen the channel. This improvement only highlighted the need for reliable lights. Steamers with beams approaching fifty feet were forced through a channel barely seventy-five feet wide, flanked by piles that were frequently struck and destroyed. The light attendants who tended the private beacons lived in constant fear of runaway steamers during fog or high winds.
Momentum finally shifted in the early 1880s. General Orville Babcock, then overseeing lighthouse construction at nearby Mosquito (Ponce) Inlet, quietly encouraged local steamboat interests to seek congressional support rather than continued petitions to the Lighthouse Board. W. B. Watson of the DeBary-Baya Merchant Line followed this advice, appealing directly to Senator Wilkinson Call of Florida. Call proved receptive. In 1883, the Naval Secretary forwarded a detailed letter to the Secretary of the Treasury outlining the dangers of Volusia Bar, the government’s prior investment in channel improvements, and the dependence of tens of thousands of Floridians on safe navigation through the bar. The Lighthouse Board soon reversed its long-held position.
Congress appropriated funds in 1884 for lights on the St. Johns River, including Volusia Bar. Plans called for a dwelling-type lighthouse built on a combined iron and wooden foundation set in the shallow waters near the south end of Lake George. The structure would support a fourth-order Fresnel lens capable of being seen across the lake, along with a mechanically operated fog bell. Two stake-mounted range lights would mark the axis of the channel between the jetties.
Construction was delayed by title disputes, most notably claims advanced by E. E. Ropes of Astor, who asserted ownership of submerged lands near the bar. Federal investigation ultimately determined that the site lay within a navigable waterway and was already government property. With title secured, prefabricated components were shipped in late 1885, and construction was completed in early March 1886.
On March 10, 1886, Volusia Bar Lighthouse officially entered service. The light, shown from a focal plane thirty-four feet above the lake, illuminated the entire horizon. In foggy weather, a bell struck once every ten seconds. The accompanying range lights—fixed red lanterns mounted on single piles—guided vessels precisely through the narrow opening between the jetties. Detailed sailing directions were issued to mariners, underscoring the importance of the new aids.
The first keeper of Volusia Bar Lighthouse was John Kane, whose appointment stirred local resentment. Longtime light attendant Benjamin Falaney, who had tended private beacons at the bar for decades, was passed over despite political support. Kane served until 1901, followed by a succession of keepers including John Lindquist, Charles W. Grimm, and others. Separate attendants were employed to maintain the range and post lights, a position that generated its own share of disputes, petitions, and even land-claim schemes.
For more than two decades, the lighthouse and its associated aids made the crossing of Volusia Bar safer and more predictable. But by the early twentieth century, the forces that had created the lighthouse’s necessity were fading. Severe freezes damaged agricultural production, railroads captured passenger and freight traffic, and the great steamboat lines gradually withdrew from the river. In 1908, the Lighthouse Board permanently discontinued the main light and fog signal at Volusia Bar, though the structure itself was left standing. The rear range light was strengthened to compensate, and the lantern room was eventually removed from the building.
The fog signal, however, proved harder to abandon. Dense winter fogs on Lake George continued to endanger vessels, and private companies paid attendants to operate the bell. After sustained lobbying by the Clyde Line, the government officially reestablished the fog signal in 1915, though the bell had been sounded intermittently under private operation in the interim. Over the next two decades, men such as Jeremiah Kelly, Frank B. Lansing, and A. J. Anderson maintained the fog signal and minor lights, often living in isolation on the lake.
The quiet routine of Volusia Bar was shattered in the winter of 1938. A. J. Anderson, the fifty-five-year-old attendant known locally as “Old Man Anderson,” failed to light the lamps. When neighbors and pilots went to investigate, they found Anderson’s body floating in the water near the lighthouse. The dwelling had been ransacked, blood marked the interior, and signs of a violent struggle were evident. A trail of blood led from the bedroom to the porch and dock.
Authorities concluded that Anderson had not been shot or stabbed; instead, his neck had been broken by unknown means. With no family to claim his body, he was buried in a pauper’s grave at DeLand. Persistent rumors in the community prompted State Attorney Pat Sams to order an exhumation, but the examination yielded no new evidence. The murder was never solved, and local lore held that the one person willing to speak openly about the crime later died under similarly mysterious circumstances.
After Anderson’s death, J. Harnum Lucas assumed responsibility for the remaining aids. Technological changes followed quickly. In 1939, the old thousand-pound fog bell was replaced with electrically powered trumpet horns, and the remaining lights were converted from kerosene to electricity. During World War II, with river traffic at historic lows, the Coast Guard finally deactivated the fog signal in 1943. Volusia Bar Lighthouse was abandoned.
For decades, the structure stood empty, serving as an occasional refuge for fishermen and hunters, until it was destroyed by fire in 1974. Today, only the pilings remain visible above the waters of Lake George. Yet the range lights—now modernized and flashing white—continue to guide boaters across Volusia Bar, a quiet reminder of a time when steamboats ruled the St. Johns River and a solitary lighthouse stood watch over one of Florida’s most treacherous inland passages.
Keepers: John Kane (1886 – 1901), A. Synneberg (1901), John Lindquist (1901 – 1905), Charles W. Grimm (1905 – 1908), Jeremiah Kelly (at least 1909), Frank B. Lansing (1912 – at least 1935), A. J. Anderson ( – 1938), J. Harnum Lucas (1938 – ).
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