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Just offshore on Florida’s southwest coast, 12-mile long Sanibel Island today is regarded as a vacation paradise by lovers of white sand, turquoise water, fresh seafood and plentiful seashells. The subtropical island’s once subdued character changed drastically with the construction of a causeway from the mainland in 1963. Most of the island’s buildings have been erected since that time, but the Sanibel Lighthouse has stood at the island’s eastern end as a sentinel through more than a century of change.
For centuries Sanibel and the nearby coast and islands were the domain of the Calusa Indians, who lived off the Gulf of Mexico’s bounty of fish and shellfish. The Calusas were gradually decimated by disease after the arrival of Europeans until they were extinct by 1800. Ponce de Leon may have visited the area by 1513, and a Dutch explorer, Bernard Romans, referred to the island as “Sanybel” in 1769. The name appears to be a corruption of the earlier “Puerto de S. Nibel,” or South Plane Harbor.
A small group of New York investors, the Florida Land Company, got title to the island in 1833. The early would-be developers realized that aids to navigation would be essential to their success, and they reportedly petitioned for a lighthouse that year with no result. Two years later the Second Seminole War broke out and a customs officer on a nearby island was killed. Sanibel was abandoned by 1836 and the island returned to quiet solitude for a few more decades.
The Lighthouse Board recommended a lighthouse on Sanibel Island in 1856 to no avail. Another request was made for a lighthouse in 1877, and in 1883 $50,000 was appropriated. By the end of that year the entire island was designated as the Sanibel Island Lighthouse Reservation.
Construction, lights and lenses,
and civilian keepers 1884-1939
Early in 1884 a 162-foot wharf and two wooden keepers’ quarters on iron stilts were constructed at Point Ybel at Sanibel’s eastern end. Meanwhile, the iron parts for the lighthouse were being readied by the Phoenix Iron Company in New Jersey. The lighthouse was to be an open skeletal-type iron tower with a central cylinder. It was believed that this type of tower would allow the winds produced by hurricanes and other violent storms to pass right through without causing damage. Many ferocious storms over 116 years have proven the designers correct.
A 900-pound third order Fresnel lens and kerosene-fed lighting apparatus were installed, along with a clockwork winding mechanism. The white light, 98 feet above sea level with a 6.4-second flash every 120 seconds, was first exhibited on August 20, 1884. Sanibel Light was originally considered an important seacoast landfall light.
Sanibel’s first lighthouse keeper was Dudley Richardson of Key West. Henry Shanahan came as an assistant in the late 1880s. After Richardson returned to Key West in 1892, Shanahan became keeper. He married an island widow and they raised a combined family of 13 children. Some of Shanahan’s older sons and stepsons helped tend the light, and his son Eugene became keeper when Shanahan died in 1913.
Shanahan’s stepson Clarence Rutland assisted at the lighthouse station for a number of years. He later described the work routine at the station. “There were two men. We changed watch each night at 12. It was an oil light and we’d take a can up full in the afternoon and pump the light and bring the can down empty in the morning. The light had clockworks on it and you had to keep it flashing to the second. Somebody had to be with it almost every minute.”
By 1902 the lighthouse reservation still extended two miles west of the lighthouse. That year much of the property was divided into lots, which were later, sold at public auction. By 1923 the reservation had shrunk to its present size, with the boundary 1,000 feet to the west of the center of the lighthouse tower.
In 1923 the houses were remodeled and indoor plumbing was installed. Screen porches were added to the bay side of each building, and bathrooms with plumbing replaced the earlier outdoor privies.
Also in 1923, Sanibel Light was converted from kerosene to acetylene gas. A fixed third order lens replaced the original Fresnel lens, which had bulls-eyes to produce its flash as it revolved. The light’s characteristic changed at this time along with the optics. A flasher produced the characteristic while the lens remained stationary. A sun relay photocell, called a “sun valve,” was clamped to an upper railing on the tower’s southeast side and was connected to the ignition apparatus. This arrangement turned the light on automatically as it became dark. The keepers still had plenty to do, maintaining the finicky flasher and other equipment.
The Coast Guard Years and
the England family, 1939-1949
The U.S. Coast Guard took over operations at Sanibel Island Light Station in 1939. A coastal lookout tower near the lighthouse was erected in 1942 for the purpose of watching for German submarines in the area, and a third cottage was built around the same time to house a special detachment of Coast Guardsmen who patrolled area beaches by jeep looking for enemy landings. The fears of German invasion were probably well founded, as a German U-boat sank west of Gasparilla Island to the north of Sanibel. The lookout tower was destroyed after being badly damaged by Hurricane Donna in 1960.
In February of 1946 Coast Guardsman William Robert (Bob) England, Jr. became the island’s last lighthouse keeper. Bob England had enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1941 and married Mae Leonorah Edson, a native of Floral City, four years later.
Sanibel Island was England’s first lighthouse assignment, and he moved into the keeper’s quarters with his wife and their one-month-old daughter, Margaret. An assistant keeper named Jim Garner lived in the adjoining house with his wife Judy and their young daughter. Single Coast Guardsmen lived in the 1942 cottage.
Besides the lighthouse, the Sanibel keepers had to maintain 57 navigational lights and 150-day beacons from Boca Grande to Lake Okeechobee and Fort Myers Beach, as well as a sea buoy offshore. There was always at least one keeper at the station. “We never left it unmanned. We would take turns going into town,” said Bob England in 1993.
Mosquito control has helped change Sanibel into a prime tourist destination, but in the 1940s the mosquitos were a major factor in island life. Mae England had to wear a bee veil, leather jacket and gloves to hang clothes outside, and the keepers had to dress similarly much of the time when working outside. Only when a strong breeze was blowing from offshore was the beach near the lighthouse relatively mosquito-free. The keeper’s houses had screened porches, and everyone sprayed themselves with repellent before they went into the house. On one occasion Mae opened the door and sprayed into a cloud of mosquitos near the water cistern. Later a pile of dead insects three by four feet and 18 inches high was found.
Life for the keepers and families usually didn’t extend far past the boundaries of the light station. In those days the only way on and off the sparsely populated (about 100 people) island was a three-mile ferry ride. When possible they would visit friends who lived nearby, including Webb “Pappy” Shanahan, Clarence Rutland’s stepbrother, who lived right next to the station. Pappy Shanahan had helped to tend the lighthouse, and he was also a mailman and popular island institution.
The fishing was excellent around Point Ybel and Cuban fishing smacks were often anchored offshore. Mae England became proficient at using a cast-net to bring in mullet and other fish. One time a single cast caught 32 mullet, leading to a huge fish fry for most of the island’s population. The fishing suffered from late 1946 through the summer of 1947 when the area was hit by the worst red tide ever recorded on the Gulf Coast. One Cuban vessel had all the fish in their on-board well die from the poisoning. The England’s buried the fish by the dock and planted a garden on top. “We had the best tomatoes and broccoli that year,” says Mae England.
The England’s had two pets at the station — one traditional and one a bit unusual. The traditional pet was a dog named Tuffy, described by Mae England as “part hound and part something fuzzy.” The other “pet” was a huge jewfish (a type of sea bass that can weight up to 700 pounds) that lived under the station’s dock. The fish served as a natural garbage disposal, devouring all the scraps the England’s could feed it.
Margaret England remembers little about life at the lighthouse station since she was only three years old when the family left. She does remember feeling rather matter-of-fact about the England’s’ unusual home. “Didn’t every little girl live on an island, at a light station, in a white house on stilts?” she asks. “I remember most things little girls remember. The cat, a favorite food — smoked mullet — and morning glories.” Margaret recalls following her father up the steps on one occasion, a trip that seemed to take forever. She says, “When I went up again 50 years later I couldn’t get over how easy the climb was up the stairs.”
Over the years many hurricanes brought punishing winds and high tides to the light station. It was reported that the tower actually swayed in one 1944 hurricane, and that the ocean was lapping around the main beams of the buildings. According to Sanibel Island chronicler Charles LeBuff, the record 14-foot storm surge in an 1873 hurricane probably would have swept the buildings away had the station already been built.
Two hurricanes struck in 1947. The first one hit in September and sunk a Cuban fishing boat off Fort Myers Beach. The captain and the crew drowned, but some of the crew managed to swim to shore on Sanibel Island. It was reported that the captain tied himself to the vessel’s wheel. The survivors dove to cut him free, and they buried him onshore. The survivors were given shelter at the lighthouse station.
Another Cuban boat was anchored offshore when the second 1947 hurricane struck in October. The crewmen from that vessel were also allowed to stay at the lighthouse station, making a total of about 12 Cubans who weathered the storm there. Mae England was eight months pregnant with her second child at the time. The storm washed away the stairs from the keeper’s house, but the Cubans retrieved the stairs and put them back in place for Mrs. England’s benefit. Mae and Bob England’s second child, Bill, was born a few weeks later.
The storm destroyed much of the vegetation around the station, including the coconut palms. During the hurricane “you could hear the coconuts going thump, thump, thump under the house,” remembers Mae England. She says she wasn’t scared. “I’m an old Florida cracker — third generation. I’d been through hurricanes before. Back in Floral City in a hurricane once, a sweet-gum tree fell and split another tree, and that fell into the house. Now that was scary!”
Partly because of concern over erosion, in April of 1949 the Sanibel Lighthouse was automated and the personnel were assigned to a new station, the Fort Myers Light Attendant Station. Bob England serviced aids to navigation from there until 1951, then spent 10 more years on light and buoy tenders. He retired in 1961 as a Chief Bosun Mate. By the late 1960s the Fort Myers station was phased out. The Aids to Navigation Team from St. Petersburg took responsibility for the aids in the area, including the Sanibel Lighthouse.
In 1993 Bob England visited the lighthouse and climbed the stairs for the first time in 42 years. “Years ago, I could make it to the top in a minute and a half,” he said. “Once in a while I stopped to look out the windows on the way up. It always fascinated me because the scenery changed hour by hour.” Bob England died on March 30, 2000, at 80, leaving five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
The Wildlife Refuge and
Charles LeBuff, 1949-1982
In June of 1949 the Fish and Wildlife Service negotiated a permit with the Coast Guard to use the light station buildings. The station became the headquarters for the 6,000-acre Sanibel National Wildlife Refuge, now the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge.
In 1958 Charles LeBuff, a herpetologist, historian, and sign painter originally from Medford, Massachusetts, arrived as an employee of the Wildlife Refuge. LeBuff, whose family had relocated to Florida in 1952, would go on to live for 21 years in the assistant keeper’s cottage. He has chronicled his life on Sanibel Island in his book, Sanybel Light: An Historical Autobiography.
LeBuff was given some official light-keeping duties by the Coast Guard. One of his duties was to help install the 225-pound tanks of acetylene gas for the light. Every six months, three new cylinders of the combustible gas were hoisted into place at the base of the lighthouse staircase using a heavy rope and LeBuff’s military jeep. Luckily, nothing ever went wrong.
In the 1950s cypress cisterns collected rain water for drinking and cooking. There were two 4,000 gallon cisterns next to each of the keepers’ cottages, and another one that held 5,000 gallons between the two buildings. One of LeBuff’s most unpleasant duties was cleaning out the water cistern by hand. This procedure turned up some interesting finds, such as cockroaches, dead tree frogs, lizards and rat skeletons. The water was later found to be contaminated with asbestos from the roof of the dwelling, and eventually bottled water was used for drinking.
LeBuff followed the lead of the Coast Guard and kept the station’s foliage well trimmed. In 1969 a Boy Scout troop under LeBuff’s direction created trails around the station, and the same trails are still used today.
Extreme weather continued to play a part in life at the lighthouse. In one electrical storm LeBuff counted 22 lightning strikes as the winds reached 78 miles per hour. The LeBuffs also experienced an unusual prolonged cold snap in December 1962. Several dead manatees washed up on the beach near the lighthouse during this period.
The light was electrified in 1962. The lens was again replaced, this time by a 500 mm drum lens that had been used on a lightship. The drum lens — or one very much like it — is now on display at Sanibel Historical Village’s Burnap Cottage with other memorabilia relating to the lighthouse. The drum lens was replaced in the early 1980s by the present 190 mm plastic lens.
Charles and Jean LeBuff raised two children in their years at the lighthouse. Their son Chuck considered the lighthouse his “personal jungle gym.” Chuck was ordered by his father not to climb too high, but his handprints all over the lighthouse gave him away. The whole family sometimes climbed the lighthouse in the more traditional way — using the spiral stairs inside — to watch NASA launches in the 1960s.
Charles LeBuff today is one of the few island residents who remembers Sanibel “B. C.” — Before the Causeway. The road connecting Sanibel Island to the mainland was finished in 1963. LeBuff says, “...when the first vehicle drove over the bridge, the island ambiance was snuffed out.” While many old residents packed their bags, droves of new residents and tourists arrived. When he first arrived on the island in 1958, LeBuff was Sanibel’s 155th registered voter. The year-round population is now about 7,000, and the winter population balloons to about 22,000. Sanibel was incorporated as a city in 1974, and Charles LeBuff was elected as an original City Council member.
LeBuff moved out of the lighthouse station in 1979 and retired in 1990. He still is an active lecturer and writer. In Sanybel Light: An Historical Autobiography, he wrote, “There’s one very special element missing in my everyday life: the close, constant and faithful flash that is generated each night after dark from inside the lantern room of the Sanibel Lighthouse.”
City ownership, 1982-present
In 1982 the City of Sanibel took over the management of the station, except for the lighthouse tower. Today city employees live at the station and maintain the buildings and grounds. This arrangement has worked out well, although Charles LeBuff believes that the vegetation that now grows close to the wooden keeper’s dwellings represents a fire hazard. He would like to see the station restored to its early 20th century appearance, which was vegetation-free except for a few coconut palms.
The Coast Guard had planned to discontinue the light in 1972. A public hearing was held with local citizens, boaters and fishermen, and it was decided to keep the light active. From offshore the white flash now blends in with numerous lights along the coast, but the people of Sanibel feel the flashing light itself is part of their unique home’s history and character.
An exhibit at the Sanibel Historical Village outlines the light station’s history, and city officials hope to install a more extensive museum at the station in the future. It is hoped that ownership of the lighthouse property will be transferred to the City of Sanibel, while the lighthouse tower will continue to be maintained by the Coast Guard.
This story appeared in the
July 2001 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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