Northwest Passage Light
The Northwest Passage Light was a lighthouse located eight miles (13 km) from Key West, Florida, at the entrance to the northwest channel to the Key West harbor. The first light was a lightship put on station in 1838. The lightship broke its moorings but survived the Great Havana Hurricane of 1846, which destroyed the Sand Key and Key West lighthouses. The United States Lighthouse Board requested funds to replace the lightship in 1852, citing the expense of maintaining it. The lightship was repaired and funding for a replacement lighthouse was delayed until 1854. The new lighthouse was completed in 1855.[1]
The original fifth order Fresnel lens was replaced with a fourth order lens after the Civil War. In 1879 the deteriorating wooden structure was replaced with a new structure based on the original iron pilings. The light was automated with acetylene gas in 1911. The light was deactivated some time between then and 1971, when the wooden structure burned. The iron pilings remain, but are deteriorating. It is known locally as the "Hemingway house on the water", or "Hemingway Stilts", based on a legend that Ernest Hemingway used to own or, at least, fish from the structure.[2]
References
- v
- t
- e
- Alligator Reef
- Amelia Island
- Amelia Island North Range
- American Shoal
- Anclote Keys
- Cape Canaveral
- Cape Florida
- Cape San Blas
- Cape St. George
- Carysfort Reef
- Cedar Key
- Charlotte Harbor
- Cosgrove Shoal
- Crooked River
- Dames Point
- Dog Island
- Dry Tortugas
- Egmont Key
- Fowey Rocks
- Garden Key
- Gasparilla Island
- Hen and Chickens Shoal
- Hillsboro Inlet
- Jupiter Inlet
- Key West
- Molasses Reef
- Northwest Passage
- Pacific Reef
- Pensacola
- Ponce de Leon Inlet
- Port Boca Grande
- Pulaski Shoal
- Rebecca Shoal
- Sand Key
- Sanibel Island
- Smith Shoal
- Sombrero Key
- St. Augustine
- St Johns
- St. Johns River
- St. Joseph Point
- St. Marks
- Tennessee Reef
- Volusia Bar
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/St._Augustine_Lighthouse_1.jpg/60px-St._Augustine_Lighthouse_1.jpg)