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As Mother Nature continues her threatening efforts to claim Florida’s Cape San Blas Lighthouse, the first efforts have taken place to save the historic light station.
Nothing comes easy when saving a lighthouse from erosion, especially when the only road to move the lighthouse and its accompanying structures has been washed away, as recently happened at Cape San Blas. Not to be daunted by the power of ocean and the winds of Mother Nature, humans have an amazing tenacity at fighting back with resolve and resourcefulness. In the case of Cape San Blas, a new road was built almost as fast as the old road was destroyed.
The new road was needed to enable work crews from Stone’s House Movers, who were contracted by Eglin Air Force Base to move the keepers’ houses from the eroding shoreline. However, the two keepers’ homes were only moved about 100 feet, which is only a temporary fix that was paid for by the Air Force. But the Air Force will not pay to move the homes and the lighthouse tower to a location in Port St. Joe where the local community officials and the St. Joseph Historical Society want them moved.
Moving the keeper’s homes to a location may be fairly easy to accomplish, but moving the tower will be much more complicated. In fact, it may have to be partially or full disassembled to be moved and then reassembled. And it will be expensive. Estimates run $300,000 or more and only $80,000 has been raised so far.
The local community is doing the best they can; in fact, they hope to do better than best. But they need additional help and they are hoping that lighthouse aficionados and preservationists nationwide will step forward with contributions. Every donation helps. All photographs courtesy of Debbie Hopper – www.JoeBay.com.
Donations can be mailed to:
St. Joseph Historical Society,
Cape San Blas Lighthouse Fund
P.O. Box 231
Port St. Joe, FL 32457.
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2013 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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