The lighthouse was originally constructed on Pea Island , south of Oregon Inlet in but was abandoned 12 years later due to poor foundation. Rebuilt in , the then feet tall lighthouse was blown up by Confederate troops in fearing that the tower would be used by Union forces during the Civil War. Across Oregon Inlet in the current location on Bodie Island, construction of the new foot tall black and white horizontally-striped lighthouse was completed in with the installation of a first-order Fresnel lens, eventually electrified in Eventually, progress enabled school buses to reach the island and the families were able to live with the keepers.
The light was electrified in , phasing out the need for on-site keepers. The keepers' duplex has since undergone two historic restorations, the last having been completed in May The building now serves as a ranger office and visitor center for Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The most recent restoration of the lighthouse itself was completed in Still a functioning navigational aid, the tower is open for public tours. Tucked away between tall pine trees and freshwater marshland, the Bodie Island Light presents anything but a typical lighthouse setting.
Though not as well-known as its neighbors, it remains an important part of local history and a favorite spot for visitors. Explore This Park. Info Alerts Maps Calendar Reserve. Alerts In Effect Dismiss. Dismiss View all alerts. Bodie Island Light Station. Bodie Island Lighthouse. The street address is. Once the purchase finally went through, the man who approved all lighthouse expenditures the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury , was far more interested in saving money than in building a proper lighthouse.
Although normally we would applaud efforts to curtail government spending, in this case it was disastrous. The result was a monument to inefficiency. The unsupported brick foundation quickly developed cracks and leaks and began to sink on one side. Within a couple of years the lighthouse resembled the leaning Tower of Pisa, without the cultural cachet, and although a fourth-order lens was installed in the tower in , it soon had to be abandoned.
A mere eleven years after it was constructed, the now derelict lighthouse was razed. The second lighthouse, although better built, fared even worse. First lit on July 1, , the new Bodie Island Lighthouse was designed by the trusty Army Corps of Engineers, and boasted a graceful eighty-foot tower of whitewashed brick and an iron lantern room. Its third-order Fresnel lens was visible fifteen miles out to sea, but almost immediately the Civil War brought an end to its usefulness.
A report in November indicates that the lighthouse was still standing, though its Fresnel lens had been removed, but before the end of the war the Confederates succeeded in destroying the tower.
Aerial view of lighthouse in Photograph courtesy U. A fifteen-acre site, a mile-and-a-half north of the former site and on the opposite side of Oregon Inlet, was acquired in , and Dexter Stetson, the construction foreman who had just completed Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, set to work. The same innovative foundation used at Cape Hatteras was repeated at Bodie Island, with stacked timber pilings below the ground topped by an octagonal base of granite blocks that were delivered to the station using a derrick set up in six feet of water in Roanoke Sound.
Hatsel, who resided in the new dwelling built just west of the lighthouse. Keeper William F. Hatsel was initially assisted by two men: Isaac Meekins as first assistant and William E.
Etheridge as second assistant. Rebecca Hatsel, wife of the head keeper, was hired as a third assistant in , but this position was eliminated the following year. Rebecca was the only female keeper to serve at Bodie Island. From the time work began on the lighthouse in July until its completion the following year, at least six vessels ran aground in the vicinity.
Except for an unfortunate flock of geese crashing into the lens just eighteen days after it was first lit, Bodie Island Lighthouse has had a relatively peaceful existence. Strategically placed wire screening was put in place to protect the lens from further damage by birds. Originally, the spiral stairway, attached to the metal lantern at the top and a copper rod that was inserted into the ground at the base of the brick tower, served as the lightning conductor.
During a storm, a keeper on one of the stairway landings received a rather severe shock that left the lower half of his body numb for quite some time. An engineer recommended that a conducting cable, insulated from the stairway, be run inside the tower, but it took another lightning strike in , before this alteration was made. The Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board for , contains the following on Bodie Island: There is but one dwelling at this station for the keeper and his two assistants, and it is impossible for them to have their families with them because of the lack of sufficient and proper accommodations.
This fact does not tend to make the keepers contented or to induce that degree of interest in the station on their part necessary to maintain it in the best condition. But then, high construction costs at the isolated station made it impossible to build a dwelling within the authorized amount, and the project was abandoned.
On September 19, , Bodie Island Lighthouse was electrified through the installation of a generator at the station. This led the way to the lighthouse being fully automated in Ownership of Bodie Island Light Station, excepting the square plot of land, feet on each side, on which the lighthouse stood, was transferred to the National Park Service in
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