6 Historic Lighthouses You Can Visit Across the US

In 1792, President George Washington commissioned the construction of the Montauk Point Lighthouse, located on the eastern tip of Long Island. “It’s the oldest lighthouse in New York and fourth-oldest working lighthouse in the U.S.,” says Mia Certic, executive director of the Montauk Historical Society.

Before construction began, it was clear that a lighthouse was necessary in this particular spot on the Atlantic coastline. “The Montauketts built fires on Turtle Hill to guide their boats home safely, and the British did the same to protect their ships during the Revolutionary War,” Certic says.

Construction didn’t begin until 1796, but once it did, the structure took only five months to complete. “The sandstone came in by boat from Connecticut and was transported up the hill to the building site by oxen,” Certic explains.

Montauk Point Lighthouse is only one of 12 lighthouses named a National Historic Landmark. It is still in operation today, with an automated light that flashes every five seconds and can be seen from 19 nautical miles away.

In 1794, Congress authorized the construction of a lighthouse on Cape Hatteras in Buxton, North Carolina, to protect the shipping trade from one of the most dangerous sections of the Atlantic coastline. It’s here that the Gulf Stream collides with the Virginia Drift creating a current that forces southbound ships into a hazardous 12-mile-long sandbar called Diamond Shoals, where hundreds, if not thousands, of shipwrecks have occurred.

Construction on the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse began in 1799. Four years later, the 90-foot sandstone tower was first lit with a lamp powered by whale oil. Still, danger to mariners remained, so in 1853, 60 feet was added to the lighthouse’s height. In need of extensive repairs, Congress appropriated funds for a new lighthouse in the late 1860s, which was completed and lit in 1870. Three years later, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse received its iconic paint job with a black-and-white-stripe daymark pattern.

The U.S. Coast Guard operates and maintains the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse’s automated light.

Constructed in 1854 in the San Francisco Bay, the original 40-foot Cape Cod-style Alcatraz Island Lighthouse was the first lighthouse built on the West Coast. At the time, Alcatraz Island was the site of a U.S. Army citadel that had been built in the early 1850s because of San Francisco’s population explosion thanks to the California Gold Rush. By the end of the decade, military prisoners were being housed on the island.

A new 95-foot lighthouse was erected in 1909 because the original was no longer tall enough to shine over the cellhouse. In 1933, Alcatraz Island was transferred to the U.S. Justice Department for use as a maximum-security penitentiary.

Operated separately from the prison, the lighthouse became automated, and a modern beacon was added in 1963 that remains operational. The lighthouse’s interior isn’t open to the public, but you can visit the island grounds to view it from outside.

Located near the town of Ilwaco in the southwestern corner of Washington state, Cape Disappointment Lighthouse has guided sailors into the mouth of the Columbia River since its completion in 1856. Ryen Nielsen, an interpretive specialist at Cape Disappointment State Park, says it’s the oldest lighthouse in the state.

An 1848 government survey first recommended that a lighthouse be built on this spot because of the large number of shipwrecks in the area, but it took a few years for that to become a reality. “Cape Disappointment was almost the first lighthouse built on the entire West Coast, but the Oriole, the ship carrying building materials for the lighthouse, sank on the infamous Columbia River bar in 1853, so construction of Cape Disappointment wasn’t completed until 1856,” Nielsen explains.

“Despite its age, it is still active, operating and crucial to maritime safety in our area, as the Columbia River mouth is one of the world’s most dangerous river crossings, with a deadly mix of sandbars, intense currents and 30-plus-foot tall waves,” Nielsen says.

Named for Spanish Basque explorer Bruno de Heceta y Dudagoitia, the Heceta Head Lighthouse stands on a bluff 205 feet above the Pacific Ocean on the Oregon coast, 12 miles north of Florence. Construction of the 56-foot-tall lighthouse tower was completed in August 1893, and it was first illuminated the next year.

“Heceta Head Lighthouse is unique because of its lens,” says Ben Ervin, a park ranger at Carl Washburne State Park, close to where Heceta Head Lighthouse is located. “It is the only active First Order English-made revolving Fresnel lens in the U.S.A.”

Fresnel lenses are made of thin bull’s eye–shaped panels, which refract the light both horizontally and vertically, producing a much stronger beam. “The revolving lens is so large that six full-grown people can stand straight up inside,” Ervin says.

Heceta Head Lighthouse is still in operation today, and its automated beacon can be seen 21 miles from land.

The early 20th century saw the explosive growth of iron ore shipments across Lake Superior, with 112 steel freighters traveling on the body of water in 1901 alone. Tragedy struck in November 1905 when a massive storm off the North Shore cliffs near Two Harbors, Minnesota, damaged 29 ships, including two that filled with water and sank.

In the aftermath, the U.S. Steel Corporation and others successfully lobbied Congress to act. The legislature appropriated $75,000 for a lighthouse and fog signal at Split Rock in early 1907. Construction of the 54-foot-high Split Rock Lighthouse was completed in 1910. Beginning in the 1930s, it became a popular tourist attraction.

Split Rock Lighthouse was decommissioned in 1969, but its light shines once a year, on November 10, to commemorate the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975.