LET THERE BE LIGHT: SAINT SIMONS LIGHTHOUSE

 The St. Simons Lighthouse and Keeper’s Dwelling were built in 1868-1872, replacing an earlier light station destroyed during the American Civil War. The brick tower still serves as an Active Aid to Navigation and houses the original third order Fresnel lens. Designed and manufactured in France, the lens casts its beam 23 miles out to sea. The Dwelling was home to lighthouse keepers and their families until the light was automated in the mid-1950s. In1975, the Dwelling became a museum of coastal history, operated by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society.

In 1804, John Couper, owner of Cannon’s Point Plantation, deeded four acres of land at the southern end of St. Simons to the Federal government as the site for a lighthouse. In May 1807, James Gould was awarded the contract to build the St. Simons Lighthouse. James Gould moved south in the 1790s to survey timber. In 1810, President James Madison appointed Gould to serve as the first keeper of the lighthouse. Gould acquired a cotton plantation on St. Simons and trained several of his slaves to maintain the Lighthouse.

The Lighthouse had a base 25 feet in diameter, tapering to 10 feet in diameter at the top. The tower was 75 feet tall, with 8 foot thick walls at the foundation. The first light, an oil lantern probably fueled with whale oil, was suspended in an iron lantern room ten feet tall.

At the beginning of the Civil War, a Confederate earthworks fort was built west of the Lighthouse.  On September 29, 1861, the local Glynn Guards Infantry Company blew up the Lighthouse to keep it out of the hands of the Union Navy. The Fresnel lens, installed in 1857, was dismantled and removed “to the interior” prior to destruction of the tower.  When Federal troops landed in Brunswick, they searched for the lens to no avail.  It has never been found.

(1800s)
(1800s)
Present Day
Present Day





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