Amelia Island North Range Light

Amelia Island North Range Light

The 1872 Amelia Island North Range Lighthouse
Location	mouth of the St. Mary's River Florida United States
Coordinates	30°42′12″N 81°26′18″W
Tower
Constructed	1858
Construction	wood
Shape	square tower atop keeper's house
Markings	white tower and lantern
Light
First lit	1872 (rebuilt)
Deactivated	1899
Lens	Sixth order Fresnel lens
Characteristic	F R

The Amelia Island North Range Light was built to mark a channel over the sandbar at the mouth of the St. Mary's River, which led to the harbor at Fernandina Beach, Florida, on Amelia Island. It consisted of a lighthouse and a front range tower with a light, arranged so that when ships could see one light above the other, they were lined up with the channel. During the Civil War Confederate forces removed the lenses from the lights. Union forces seized Fernandina Beach, Fort Clinch and the lighthouse in 1862.

It is known that the front range tower was destroyed during the war. There is no record of when the lighthouse was destroyed, but a new lighthouse was built in 1872. As the channel over the sand bar shifted with time, the front range light was periodically moved to maintain an alignment with the channel. In 1887 the rear range light was moved from the lighthouse to a tramway to permit proper adjustments to be made to the alignment. The light was decommissioned in 1899 after the channel was sufficiently marked with buoys. The lighthouse was listed in a survey in 1924, but has since disappeared.

See also

• List of lighthouses in Florida
• List of lighthouses in the United States

References

• "Historic Light Station Information and Photography: Florida". United States Coast Guard Historian's Office. Archived from the original on 2017-05-01. Retrieved June 29, 2008.

External links

• Florida Lighthouse Page - Amelia Island North Range Lighthouse History - accessed January 16, 2006, recovered using Wayback Machine on January 22, 2007