Cape St. George Light, Historic lighthouse in St. George Island, Florida, United States
Cape St. George Light is a white conical brick tower 77 feet (23 m) tall, with a black metal gallery railing around the lantern and a small dormer window with pale shutters on the upper facade. A white paneled door and a multi-pane window sit near the base. It was rebuilt in a county park in the middle of St. George Island using 24,000 salvaged bricks in the interior lining.
The first lighthouse on St. George Island went up in 1833 near the western tip to mark West Pass into Apalachicola Bay. A second tower, built 1847–48 two miles southeast at the cape, was toppled by an 1851 hurricane; its replacement of 1851–52 reused two thirds of the ruined bricks and stood until it fell into the Gulf on October 22, 2005. Volunteers salvaged 24,000 of its 160,000 bricks and rebuilt the tower in a mid-island county park, opening it on November 29, 2008.
The St. George Light Association, formed by island volunteers, opened a museum in a reconstructed keeper's house beside the tower in August 2011. It displays a third-order Fresnel lens replica ordered in 2015 and records the salvage of 24,000 bricks from the collapsed tower.
The tower stands in a county park in the middle of St. George Island, with a reconstructed keeper's house beside it housing a museum. The site is open daily, but the museum and tower close on Thursdays. The climb goes up the interior of the conical brick tower to the lantern gallery.
Of the tower's 160,000 bricks, about 24,000 were recovered from the water after the 2005 collapse and cleaned by volunteers; they now line the interior of the rebuilt conical tower. The lantern room was hoisted into place in April 2008, and the lighthouse reopened to the public on November 29 of that year.
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