This week's LotW is a historic one that is no longer operational, but has been restored. It was restored due to it's historical value. It is North Carolina's last remaining rectangular frame building on a screwpile base.
Lots and lots of history at Lighthouse Friends: http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=359
It was established in 1867, burned in 1885, was relighted in August 1885 and then destroyed by ice in January 1886. (Umm, climate has changed a bit since then.) It looks like it was rebuilt in 1887, and worked as a lighthouse until 1941.
It was purchased to be a home, as were two other lighthouses. While attempting to move the lighthouses, two of them sank, but the Roanoke River lighthouse survived the move to Edenton.
It gets more interesting - a replica of the lighthouse was built in Plymouth (because the family that owned the original asked too much for it at the time), and is apparently there still, along with a maritime museum. But the original was purchased, "refloated", and renovated on the Edenton waterfront, and reopened (with an empty interior) in August 2014. It doesn't have an authentic Fresnel lens back yet, but hopefully they can eventually get to that.
The Roanoke River Lighthouse at Visit Edenton
http://www.visitedenton.com/1886-roanoke-river-lighthouse
It has it's own Web site, too: http://edentonlighthouse.org/
So does the replica in Plymouth: http://roanokeriverlighthouse.com/
Edenton and Plymouth are only about a 1/2 hour drive apart; one could visit both the original and the replica on a day trip.
For the sake of historical accuracy, I only have images below of the renovated original in Edenton.
An award winner by Jeff Knox:
And here's one from Max Stansell:
No comments:
Post a Comment