Middle Bay Light, Wooden lighthouse in Mobile Bay, Alabama
Middle Bay Light is a hexagonal wooden lighthouse standing on screw piles in Mobile Bay near Alabama. The structure rises approximately 14.5 meters above the water and demonstrates late 19th-century engineering approaches to building in marine environments.
The lighthouse was built in 1885 to guide vessels through a newly dredged shipping channel that improved access to the Port of Mobile. Its construction represented efforts to support growing maritime traffic in the region during that period.
The Middle Bay Light served as a testament to late 19th-century engineering, with its wooden construction and precise installation settling only three inches off level.
The lighthouse is best viewed from the water and can be reached by boat in Mobile Bay. Visitors should be aware that the interior is not open to the public since the structure now operates automatically as a navigation aid.
In 1916, a dairy cow was brought to live at the lighthouse after the keeper's wife gave birth to a child there and needed milk for the newborn. This unusual arrangement on an isolated structure remains a curious detail of the lighthouse's past.
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