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| Sunken Lighthouse as it appeared in 1885 |
By Herman Jones
Special to The Star
This article first appeared in the "Panhandle Beacon" in June 2000. With renewed interest in the Cape San Blas Lighthouse, I thought it would be of interest to rerun this story with a few changes.
The 1980’s and 90’s were the “Golden Age” of diving. There were still virgin wrecks and reefs, plenty of fish, not as many fishermen, less rules, and inexpensive gas. Whenever the Gulf was calm and the weather good, I, my wife, Pam, friends Erik Tomlinson and Regina Capps would explore new dive sites—one was the third Cape San Blas Lighthouse.
We watched with subdued excitement as our depth recorder printed the silhouette of a large pyramid-shaped object rising from a depth of twenty feet to within a few feet of the surface. Being a half mile from Cape San Blas, I found it hard to believe that just a hundred years ago a proud lighthouse stood here surrounded by pine and palm forests and family or two of lighthouse keepers.
We had been here several times before, but each trip was doomed because the chocolate-colored Gulf had prevented us from diving. Today, with tides and currents in our favor, the water was an eerie translucent green; clean enough to dive but not enough to make it enjoyable. We gazed apprehensively over the side at the dark shadow just below the surface.
The iron skeleton tower that sits on the Cape today is the fourth tower to have been built here. It was preceded by three impressive brick towers that now lie far offshore. In fact the Cape San Blas lighthouses were not the first lighthouses in what is now Gulf County. The first lighthouse was built on St. Joseph’s Point on the end of St. Joseph’s Peninsula. (I use the possessive as the old cartographers used). It was finished in February, l839 for shipping to the ill-fated city of St. Joseph that stood where Oak Grove is today. It was only 45 feet tall. After the demise of St. Joseph in the fall of l841, the tower was abandoned.
In l846, contracts were awarded for new lighthouses to be built on Cape San Blas and Cape St. George, and the contractors had the rights to salvage the “old” lighthouses on St. Joseph’s Point and on the west end of St. George Island. Thus the tower on St. Joseph’s Point was torn down; the bricks loaded into wagons and simply hauled down the beach to the Cape. The contractors saved some money as bricks were not made locally, but always shipped in; sometimes as far away as New England. So, very little was left of the tower except broken bricks.
A few decades ago, Capt. Dave Maddox showed me the site of the lighthouse. It is located a few yards inland from the old Anderson fish camp known as Anderson Flats. A few years ago, archaeologists from UWF came to the Park and couldn’t find the old lighthouse. The reason—they were looking for “curved’ bricks and walked over the regular bricks of the tower. Lighthouses were always made of straight brick. Many authors still refer to the St. Joseph’s Point Lighthouse as “disappeared forever”.
The first Cape lighthouse was completed in l847 and stood for only four years. A new tower was completed in l855, just in time for the “Great Storm of 1856” to topple it.
Not giving up easily, the lighthouse board built the last brick tower in l859, just in time for it to be taken over by the Confederates. They promptly burned everything they could, including the keeper’s home. Miraculously, the expensive lighting apparatus was not destroyed. This was done to deny the light’s aid to Union ships patrolling the Gulf.
The light was relit on July 23, l865 and the keeper did not have a house until l870. Also by l870, the relentless Gulf began washing the tower’s base. But it stood for 12 more years until July, l882, when it collapsed. Two months later, a hurricane finished-off the keeper’s house.
Giving up on brick lighthouses, the Board now ordered a movable iron skeleton tower which was to be completed in June, l885. It was to be placed 900 feet from the surf. Strangely, the tower’s arrival was delayed due to the ship sinking that carried it. Luckily, it sank in shallow water off Sanibel Island, and the lighthouse was salvaged along with the Sanibel lighthouse which was also transported by the same ship. The l885 lighthouse is an exact twin of the Sanibel tower. The keepers’ houses at Sanibel are still intact, though modernized after127 years. Our l885 keepers’ houses washed away in the hurricane of October 8 and 9, l894; the same storm that drowned l6 fishermen from East Bay at Sand Island (now western Little St. George).
By l894 the tower was again in the breakers. Giving up on the Cape, the Board chose Black’s Island in the bay as the fifth site. After finishing the tower’s foundation and the keeper’s house, money ran out in April, l896.
Returning to the Cape, the light was relit on its original site. After several years of indecision, the two keepers’ houses that are on the Cape today were finished around l905. As the years passed, the constant currents slowly carried the sand to the northwest, stealing from the Cape and giving to St. Joseph’s Point. So, by l918 it was time to move again; this time 1,857 feet from the l885 site. As a result, the lighthouse has been able to remain in one place for over 90 years.
Enough of the history lesson and back to diving!
With no enthusiasm showing—bull sharks (the baddest shark in the world) love the murky waters of the Cape—the four of us went over the side and began our adventure. With the visibility at about 4’ 1 instantly lost Erik and Pam but found Regina. We had to hold hands to keep from getting separated as we swam slowly downward to investigate. What waited for us was not a storm battered pile of scattered bricks, but large sections of still intact lighthouse. The base, even though it had settled 20 feet, still stood solid and upright. Swimming cautiously over several giant Gulf stingrays, we came to the steps that had once led from the keeper’s connected house into the tower. Lying among the stingrays and the broken walls were the iron spiral steps that once led up the 65’ tower. In the pale-green light that filtered from above, we peered under fallen walls for other clues of its history. Instead, ghostly dark shapes, scared by a new intruder, left clouds of silt as they scurried away to seek safety in other recesses of the old tower. I one “cave” we came face-to-face with a large goliath grouper, who promptly boomed his gills at us telling us to leave his domain. We backed away, leaving the giant satisfied that he had defended his territory.
Lying to the north of the base were the remains of the lantern and the balcony that encompassed the lantern. In the photo you can see a man, probably the keeper, standing on the lantern balcony. A few yards away in the sand was a true museum piece, the pedestal that once supported the light.
With the visibility rapidly diminishing, due to the stirrings of the goliath groupers, we left this gloomy realm; leaving it to countless cigar minnows, small fish, the giant stingrays, and the guardians of the ruins, the goliath groupers. I have never returned.
In my original article I made the statement that in the future divers would swim in the ruins of beach homes and townhouses built by people who little understood the unrelenting currents of the Cape, the slow rise in sea level, and the power of hurricanes the unceasingly plaque the Gulf of Mexico. I was not completely correct. Scores of homes have either been moved or washed completely away, leaving little to dive on. But, if the lighthouse is not moved soon, it to will join its predecessors and future divers will swim around its ruins. It is a sight I certainly don’t want to see. Hopefully it will be saved.
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