The St. Augustine Lighthouse is poised over the city like a watchman, conflicting for attention with the full moon and its ghastly afterglow. A cluster of stars shimmers over the inlet, casting a rigid glare behind the old ship sitting stagnant in the deep water. I look up and see the soaring tower of the stately lighthouse and its gleaming beacon of light, shining like the brightest star in the sky.

The Old Spanish Watchtower to Florida’s First Lighthouse: Lightkeepers Log October 15, 1874, William Russell:

“Light successfully exhibited in new tower”

The precursor to present-day St. Augustine Lighthouse was a Spanish watchtower built in the late 1500’s. As the oldest, permanent aid to navigation in North America, an array of wooden watchtowers matured into Florida’s first lighthouse. Construction began in 1871, and by October 1874, the hand-blown Fresnel lens from Paris was lit by head keeper, William Russel, as the new beacon of light over the oldest city.

Ascending a full 165 feet above sea-level, this unique black and white banded, red-lanterned topped, 219 step, Atlantic Seafaring lighthouse has an original Fresnel lens consisting of 370 hand-cut glass prisms arranged in a beehive shape that stands 12 feet tall, and 6 feet in diameter. With a spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean and the coastal waterways of the city, the St. Augustine Lighthouse beacon sweeps 17 miles toward the horizon, leaving the “front porch light” on for the oldest city.

Each lighthouse on the east coast of the United States has a singularity in appearance and lighting characteristic or “nightmark.” Sailors used their uniqueness as a landmark of location and distance to shore. Originally operating as “a flash every three minutes when a big bull’s eye [lens] lines up between the lamp and the human eye”, the St. Augustine Lighthouse currently has a fixed white flash every 30 seconds.