The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1960-07-01
SIX LIGHT TOWERS OVERLOOK
STATES OCEAN FAIRGROUNDS
BY MIRIAM RABB

/
craft assistance. Its beacon FLASHED
from a lamp house installed on the
165-foot high concrete tower by
Marine Corps helicopter. The light.
house is only 10 miles off U. S. Il
by paved highway.
South of Hatteras and newly
accessible by toll-free automobile
ferry and paved road, Ocracoke Is
land is the home of the oldest North
Carolina lighthouse still in use
Built in 1923, Ocracoke Lighthouse
is 76 feet high, painted white, and
shows a fixed white light for IA
miles.
Bodie Island Lighthouse, which
began operation in 1872, stands
we'll back from the ocean near the
entrance to the Cape Hatteras Ma
ton Seashore. Like Hatteras Light
house, it is accessible by new
paved Park road looping off the
State highway which extends to the
southern tips of Bodie, Hatteras
and Ocracoke Island and crosses
Oregon and Hatteras Inlets on free
automobile ferries. Bodie Island
Lighthouse is 100 feet tall, but
looks shorter because of its alter
nate stripes of black and white.
Cape Lookout Lighthouse on the
Core Banks, off the central North
Carolina mainland, is a 160-foot
high round brick tower smartly
painted with diamond-shaped black
and white markings. 1t is approach
ing it's Tooth birdthday. Only wild
ponies and a few Coast Guardsmen
and summer cottagers inhabit the
long, narrow island on which the
lighthouse stands. Visitors reach the
lighthouse by hiring boats at
Marshallburg and Harkers Island,
just off u. S. 70.
Currituck Beach, or Whaleshead,
Lighthouse is on the northern end
of the Outer Banks island (Bodie)
extending from the Virginia line to
Oregon Inlet. That section of the
island is accessible only by beach
buggy, boat, or light aircraft. The
red brick lighthouse, 1853 feet tall
and completed in 1875, is visible
from the famed duck hunting and
grounds of Currituck Sound.
Electricity replaced oil lamps
many years ago in all of North
Cardinals still-active lighthouses,
and the lights are tended by crews
from nearby Coast Guard stations
rather than by resident keepers.
At Hatteras and Bodies Island,
buildings which formerly housed
personnel have been re-
furnished as National Park Serv-
ice museums. There is Museum
of Natural History at Bodie Island
Lighthouse and a Museum of the
Sea at Cape Hatteras. Both mu-
seums are open free year around.
On Smith Island off the South
eastern North Carolina coast are
two abandoned lighthouses visible
from the town of Southport and
from the beach near the new Oak
Island Lighthouse. Oak Island
Lighthouse was built to replace
Cape Fear Lighthouse, a steel
skeleton tower built on Smith Is
land in 1908 to mark the entrance
to the Cape Fear River, shiplane
to the port of Wilmington. Also on
Smith Island is Old Baldhead Light,
built in 1906 and discontinued in
1885. "Old Badly" is still a fine
figure of a additionally styled
Lighthouse, but is visited by few
people since Smith Island is unin-
habited and accessible only by boat.
Octagonal in shape, the lighthouse
of white-painted brick is famous
of the area.
Near the base of Hatteras
Lighthouse are the crumbling
foundations (of stone brought by
ship from New England) of the
earlier light authorized by Congress
in 1894 and damaged by shells
from tha Fadaral foot in 1851