Episode 34 - Sanibel Island Lighthouse

0:00 sipping on some... sipping... hi everybody I'm Vince and I'm Emily and you're listening to the lighthouse lowdown I definitely almost forgot to click that. It was already recording for minutes. uh the intro. Oh well you nailed it. Thank you. You're saying the recording button. We're nailing it. Normally I'm on your side of the table but Vince is in charge for this episode. Welcome to it. Tell us all about it. Today we're first of all first history buoy. Oh yeah. Alright so today's history buoy is inspired by your last episode when you talked about the anatomy of a lighthouse.

0:50 Okay very nice. The lightning rod. This specific? We're gonna talk about the history of lightning rods. Whoa. And then how they got to use on lighthouses which is why we're here. Very nice. First I'm gonna take a sip. The unofficial sponsor of the moment is Emily providing Starbucks. I was like I'm the sponsor? That would be true. That's true. Yes we are. Okay Benjamin Franklin is credited with the founding of the idea of the lightning rod. So. Because he used a. Benny Frankie. Because he used a. Was it a key or something? Yep. So I'm gonna a lot of the things I'm doing today are reading quotes and many of them later are coming from the lighthouse friends.com. And you look like a teacher right now. Because I'm wearing glasses. Benjamin Franklin suspected that lightning itself was electricity given its similar color, crackle, and configuration. Noting that a pointed metal needle could draw electricity from a charged metal sphere Franklin became convinced that a metal rock coax lightning from the sky. Why?

1:51 So it would not strike. Excuse me. So it would strike the rod instead of the buildings or passerby's. Yeah. So I've never really considered that before that lightning rods intent is actually. To direct. For people. Like not buildings but also people. This is related and unrelated but remember when I talked about that the lighthouse where they connected the lightning rod to the stairway of the lighthouse. That was metal. Oh no. Was someone on the stairway? Yeah but he survived. Oh you're stealing my diagram. Yeah so he got shocked. Yes but he was okay in the end. He was paralyzed for a little while. I know.

2:33 Horrible design chance. And now. Oh sorry go ahead. I'm sorry I'm trying to take over. This is ridiculous. And now what? No because you're talking about the lightning rods. I was just gonna say that nowadays lightning rods are like connected to a copper wires that direct it. That's right. To the ground. I am so sorry. Please continue. I want to learn from you. Let's talk about metallurgy for just a second. Copper wires. So it can be any type of wire that is conducting. Okay. Like aluminum doesn't conduct electricity. So yeah it's it's non-ferrous. Ferrous metals are well actually no that's that's magnetism sorry. Okay the best conductors for electricity among them are silver and gold. Silver is like one of the very best. Originally power lines were silver. Oh. But it was too expensive and I think people were stealing them. Oh. They're like taking down the wire because imagine running wire made of silver. Silver composite. Crazy. So copper is like the next step down for cost and also conductance of electricity. So that's why copper is used in wiring. Yeah. But there are some components especially like microchip levels that are gold and silver. Even in iPhones. I think they use those as well. So like it's all around us. Super expensive for multiple reasons but super conductive electricity. So some lightning rod cables are made of different materials. One we're gonna talk about is made of silver and I think it's a dual purpose we'll talk about. It's very exciting. So back to Benny Frankie. The Ben. The Big Ben.

4:07 So legend has it we talked about this but Franklin hopped on a horse in the year 1752. Gosh. Which I've never considered when this happened. With a key on a kite and he needed the horse because there wasn't enough wind. It was a rainstorm he was doing this in. And I don't know if this is multiple times or just once but the legend goes rode the horse pulled the kite which sounds hard on its own. Yeah. And then observed that the key would get struck by lightning at least on one occasion. So that was his confirmation that lightning is drawn to a metallic object if it's high up in the air and it's kind of unique. It's on its own. It's like lightning is more likely to hit this piece of metal than somewhere else.

4:47 Yeah I saw a TikTok a week or two ago about like a physics professor. I tried to find it but I can't find anything on TikTok after it's gone. But he was explaining lightning rods and how electrons are actually traveling off of the end of the rod because of its pointy shape and how electron travel will create the best path for electricity to travel through. So the lightning actually strikes the rod and goes down to the cable because it's the best path of least resistance between the source, the cloud, the thunderstorm, and the earth. So all electricity wants to go to ground. It wants to ground itself. So if you're shocked, if you're electrocuted, it's because the energy is passing through your body to the ground. Yeah. So that's why they have isolating shoes like rubber-soled shoes will help you from being electrocuted but you won't feel the electrocution unless you're the termination of the source. So like you can pass electricity through your fingers between two sources without pain but if you were to jump the gap and have a shock go off your fingertip that would hurt. Yeah. So lightning is an extreme event of that. Interesting. Pretty neat.

5:54 Pretty neat. Pretty neat. I've seen pictures when people get electrocuted, sorry, when they get shocked by lightning that they have like holes in their shoes where the electricity exited. Oh my god. Oh when I was a kid we had a jacuzzi behind our house, of course, we had a hot tub and there was this little like pump or something. I think it was a cleaner that my my parents would put in there and it was electrical and I guess it wasn't fully sealed anymore. There's a copper wire exposed or something because my siblings and I we could touch the water and you'd feel it like you know fingertip. Who is letting you touch the water? Our parents weren't there and it was really mild and I touched it and I was like I can't feel anything. Well it's because they all had their shoes off I think and they were allowing electrical current to pass through them through the water because water is highly conductive. Your siblings? Yeah and so I took my shoes off and I could feel it too. I'm pretty sure that happened. Might be a false memory. It could be a dream you had when you did a bunch of electrical research. But here we are two and a half centuries later after the key in the sky on the kite, lightning rods persist. They're decorative architectural pieces, vestiges of the past and mitigators of lightning's power. So my next note is to ground. I was gonna tell you electricals pass to ground but a lot of lightning rods that you'll see now are actually an architectural style choice and they're not actually lightning rods. Meaning they make them intentionally not

7:28 conductive materials so they're not a lightning rod. Why? They chose them because there was a period where lightning rods became so they were scientific. They were proven to be useful through lots of different ways and then they were seen on the top of pristine prestigious buildings, tall buildings like skyscrapers in Chicago and New York City. They're measured sometimes by the top of the lightning rods. The lightning rods have gotten out of control because it makes the building taller. So they can set records and they build a high-rise. This high-rise is taller than that high-rise because we built it this many stories tall. Who cares about that? And then well we've talked about this a little with lighthouses as well. The height of a lighthouse is often up to question. Is it the focal plane? Is it where the gallery is at? Is it where the very tip of the lightning rod is at? You know so anyways lightning rods are prestigious and they're decorative. They got really ornate and now that's been continued. Lightning rods are also still in use for their original purpose but a lot of the ones you'll see are either overly expensive because they want to look nice and they're useful or they're actually not the lightning rod and instead they're a non-metallic decorative part.

8:42 I want to guess that. Who gives a crap about a lightning rod? The first use. I rescind that but who gives a crap about it looking nice? A lot of people. Including look at this destruction island lighthouse. This looks cool and part of the cool look to me of this diagram is the pointy top. You like that? Yeah I think it's cool. I think it adds to it. Something about it. Okay lightning rods were first used on ships because ships masts stand out and they had metal components to them often so they were struck by lightning and they'd be destroyed if not start a fire. Have you ever seen a tree get struck by lightning? Oh my god. Sometimes they explode. I know or they at least tip over.

9:25 The lightning will take chunks out of so it'll ruin a mast and then a ship will be lost at sea or they can't get back or they can't repair it. Like they don't have extra lumber for the main mast. That was the first use was on ships because it was so important. They can also take chunks out of buildings like lightnings that are struck by buildings. Yeah lightnings that are struck by buildings. Oh my gosh this coffee is awesome. So anyway ships were the first use and then I've got to show you this next image lightning rod fashion. How do you have all that? Hold on. Fancy going on. Here shows the cable. So we talked about the yeah this section on the lighthouse. There's a security camera. Look at that cupola.

10:07 Modern technology. Modern technology of a security camera and a cell tower and then also our old OG cable going to ground. Yes. Which is outside of the lighthouse for best design. Is it surrounded by something that keeps it from transferring the energy to all the other metal that it's touching right here? Is it like surrounded by rubber or something? No they're not insulated. It's open and exposed and that actually helps with the carrying of electricity. So it's again it's following the least path resistance. So that's a big gauge wire a large diameter wire and it's the best it's the easiest path for electric electricity to follow. So therefore electricity follows it and not being transferred into other metal. Which is confusing because if you see a lightning bolt it's not just a straight line. There's like branches everywhere.

10:56 So why would it be that it would perfectly follow this cable even though it's touching a bunch of other metal? Like if you were standing and holding onto that balcony would you not be in trouble? I don't think so. I think you'd be protected. It makes sense that they they wouldn't lean it up against it like that unless it wasn't of any danger to anyone. Yeah. For anyone asking we're looking at a picture where there's a cable laying across the top of the cupola and the lantern gallery. Yeah so here's another picture. So this is a I wanted to bring this up because you can see it's damaged. Yeah. The lightning takes an effect on the system and this is not something I wanted to find out because lightning does strike twice in the same place. Yeah especially here. Especially where it's where we're trying to get it to strike right on the lightning rod. And this lightning rod you're showing is like eaten away. Is it corrosion or is it like blast off pieces of it? It's a form of corrosion from lightning strikes. Yeah so they'll take off. Well and lightning is thousands of degrees Fahrenheit. It's extremely hot. So the metal that you know gets in contact with the strike is not gonna last very long. So this is a I don't remember where this is at. Oh you know what it's called Gay Head Lighthouse. I can't remember where it's at. And this is what I'm super excited to show you.

12:18 All right after 1778 shortly after Benjamin Franklin introduced the lightning rod parasol fab for umbrellas and hats that made use of new technology. A chain ran from the accessory down to the ground and would in principle carry the electricity from a lightning strike harmlessly to the ground. There's ladies in hats. Lightning rods did not become popular in the United States even to protect structures until the 19th century. You'd think you'd be worried about your hat being pulled off. There's something dragging along the ground attached to it. So these chains were almost always made of silver and that's what I was saying. Can you imagine wearing a silver chain that goes to the ground five six feet to the ground seven feet dragging along. Like oh it was a thunderstorm but we're headed to the ball. Let me grab my lightning rod hat. Lightning resistant hat. Look at that. Look at that umbrella. Can you imagine the cost of that thing?

13:11 Long spike. It's like doubling the length of the umbrella with the rod coming. You can't open that thing inside if you never wanted to. You could barely even get that on a bus. It's pretty wild. So you'd consider that a weapon. Well they did. Pretty pointy. I think it's crazy so I really enjoyed this but this is the end of our history buoy. Very interesting. I think there's probably more to learn. Maybe an electrical engineer could talk to us about like cable carrying. Yeah. Current. The question about whether or not it would transfer to other metal surfaces just by touching it. I also want to look up how many lighthouses like didn't have lightning rods. I'm sure that. Oh damage from lightning. Yeah maybe. I mean considering that this well no there were some lighthouses built long before this so I want to see how many lighthouses have been destroyed by lightning before. That'd be interesting. Well and like this comes back we had a culture comment or conversation months ago but like you know there were skeptics. Yeah. Like a lot of skeptics and they're like oh you put a rod on top of the building or on your hat and it saves you from the God's power above.

14:26 Like yeah. Or it'd be interesting you'd be like how do you know that you're not attracting lightning where there would be no lightning at all. Well and like if you go I don't know this is not advice people but I think we talked about lightning safety once like if you go on a walk in a thunderstorm condition you can't see the lightning always but it is being developed and sometimes you'll be around the first strike that you'd see close by and so it's like do or don't. Hi Bo. He's helping us. Got his chin on the recording board. I will adjust these when necessary. He's a good cat. So sorry for interrupting. Oh I don't know what I was saying. Oh walking in lightning storms. So I think the recommendation is that you do not walk towards tall items. So imagine you're like in the woods or a field. You're a farmer in a field. It starts to be you know lightning conditions. You shouldn't walk towards large trees because they might conduct the lightning strike and in that case explode or send wood shrapnel or set of fire collapse. Okay but what if you're in the middle of a field and you're six foot five. Like aren't you the lightning rod at that point? That's what they always tell you to lay down whenever there's lightning storm is because you're more likely to get hit because you're taller. Yeah so that's sketchy but people have been struck by lightning and they're okay. Some not okay. Definitely. Some have been struck by lightning and passed it. Oh and they get like bruises on their body that are like

15:58 in the shape of lightning. Okay you're gonna have to teach me how you do this. Is this the Annabelle? I'm glad you recognized it out of this photo. So wait wait this slideshow how are you doing this? This is Google slides also not sponsored. What? Yep. I didn't know they had that. And they're pretty neat. Yeah I'm definitely gonna steal this idea because slideshows on on our computers are hard. Yep we got a full screen here. There's no like name I've got to crop out. Yeah. Nice. I like that a lot and you don't have to drag things in. Yeah all right so you have correctly identified via an image from I don't remember when a long time ago I think 1940s I remember right? Sanibel Island Lighthouse. So is that what you're covering today?

16:49 That is what we're covering today. Dang it I'm so jealous. Okay tell me all about it. Well if you know something about it that I don't cover please let's cover it. No I just think it'll be a really interesting coverage and we've never done a skeleton lighthouse before. It is it is interesting. I want to talk about why I selected this one first. The the note that I have is vacation with family. Not my family not my vacation but a friend of ours mutual friend of ours sent me an image after Hurricane Ian. Yeah. And we'll talk all about Hurricane Ian. Of Hurricane Ian was September of 2022 and shortly after she sent me an image of the lighthouse still standing.

17:33 So a little bit of a spoiler in a positive way the lighthouse is still there. Now that we've discovered lighthouses that are destroyed now yeah maybe it's good we do this. Yeah and it's been there a long time we're gonna talk about the history I got a lot of things to read from lighthousefriends.com thank you again. Excellent we love them. And this image is also from them. So yeah shout out to our friend and thank you for for telling me about this. Very nice. We live in Kansas City Missouri and however bad it sounds I don't watch a ton of news so like as happenings are going on I'm not always aware of hurricanes coming. We're gonna have a couple photos to insert here of Bo the cat. He's trying to hit our trying to turn off our record button. I watched him go for it twice. He's probably be sliding the volume buttons there. No I keep an eye peeled on it. What is he doing? I think he's just wanting to be the center of attention. They both are he's purring up. Yeah Joey is here as well we each have a lap cat going on. So I'm pretty sure she's shared with me that they went on vacation here on an annual basis. Yeah. Or several times growing up and I'm gonna show you on Google Maps where we're going. Awesome. I really go remember you talking about that when the hurricane first happened. So here we are Sanibel Lighthouse 4.6 out of 5 stars. It's pretty good. 2000 ratings. So I'm gonna zoom out. I was just gonna say and you know some of those reviews are like it was raining. Yeah I can't believe it. I couldn't see anything. This experience sucked.

19:08 It wasn't warm. So Sanibel Lighthouse is on this east coast of Sanibel Island which is a string of islands as you can see going up the coast. And we'll keep zooming out but this is Fort Myers Florida. So we're on the west coast of Florida. We can zoom back in too but Key West is down south. Oh so it's pretty southern part of Florida. For those are familiar it's Sarasota Naples. Splits the difference. So Key West is down south but apparently Florida has a lot of outlying islands on the west coast towards the Gulf. I didn't know that. Yeah when you scroll out they're not even not visible. Gulf of Mexico but Cuba is down there which again we'll come into the story later. But going back in Sanibel Island is uniquely one of the islands that's not running north and south in this area. It runs east to west and so Sanibel Island Lighthouse there's a beach right here. There's another beach that's really popular and then there's a fishing pier. There's lots going on on this island for people to go visit.

20:15 Hurricane Ian has kind of reset that but it's islands still there. That bridge you can see on the maps is that the one that was destroyed? It was. It's the only bridge out there I think. Oh wow. A section of it was knocked out which isolated all the power was cut off to the island and travel as well. I read coverage from someone who was on the island during the hurricane and that they were just you know just hoping that their house would hold up and that they were gonna live. It's just crazy that people have to experience those kinds of things. I have a lot of glass artists that live in this area too.

20:55 Oh really? Yeah and they had to they just they didn't they told people to evacuate but they didn't really. They keep doing that. Yeah they didn't really specify that like oh the water level is gonna creep up this many feet. Your house is gonna be underwater. It's like you may not get the brunt of the storm but there's your it's gonna be flooded even if you yeah it's just a lot of horror stories of people watching the water just get closer to their house and be like okay like it looks like we're gonna have to leave and then all of a sudden they're fighting for their lives to get out of there. Yeah I've got a lot to cover with herkinia. No no I actually really appreciate it because it's I watched I think there's two hours of YouTube video that some guy made on the storm driving around. Oh no. He's driving around with his wife filming and he's narrating what's going on with all these I don't know the area but people who know the area here's this resort here's what it looks like. Yeah. Here's this store here's what it looks like. You know these estates here and so on. He knows the island really well he's a local guy and then another video that's a drone footage which I will show us actually. Cool. And people in the drone footage comments are like oh it doesn't look that bad. It's like there's no street.

22:13 Yeah. The house many of the houses are gone. Utilities are failed. Also even if your house is still standing the inside needs to be completely gutted. It's like there's nothing that water touches that would survive especially rushing floods like this is not it's not just like oh it's just my basement flooded it's just a little stagnant water down there. It's like this is like so hurricane Ian which is a focus point right now. Yeah. That was September of 2022 and it stretched from I believe from Cuba all the way up to South Carolina was the impacts maybe even further north. Wow. 161 fatalities. I didn't know 161 people passed away.

22:54 13 were missing. I don't know if they're included in the assumed dead. Yeah. The total damage in the United States dollars is 113 billion dollars. What? Yeah. Third costliest tropical cyclone on record. It is the costliest in Florida's history. So areas Trinidad Tobago Venezuela Columbia ABC Islands Jamaica Cayman Islands Cuba South East United States especially Florida and Carolinas. Yeah. So this is good timing the other side of the US is about to get hit with a hurricane to the west coast which I guess hasn't happened in like 80 years. Yeah. So I wanted to before we move on from this this is a comment. Numerous collectors because of the east west running on the island it collects tons of seashells. Oh yeah. It's like one of the best in the world and and Lighthouse Beach is one of the best spots so numerous collectors flocked to the island now known worldwide for its shelling and combed the beaches hunched over and what is called the quote Sanibel stoop looking for the perfect shell. I love seashells it's like my sisters and I were trying to plan a trip to Florida and we ended up going to Fort Lauderdale but I was pushing for San Abel Island because of the shells. I was like where's the best shelling in Florida and hands down San Abel Island. So I tried really hard to push for that but the nearest airports like two hours away or something. For I don't know if

24:25 it's Tampa. Oh maybe. I just closed the map but you don't look at it again. No no it's fine. I just Fort Myers is probably not the easiest place to get to. Yeah I just remember us we were looking it up that the travel from landing in an airplane to get to San Abel Island was just too it's just too much. Yeah Tampa's up the coast Sarasota I know yeah there's plenty of airports but the cost and coming from Kansas City. We'd have to rent a car. That's one of our challenges guys as a lighthouse podcasters is we want to go see more lighthouses. I've actually told people hey we're coming you know in September and we're not going. It's just it's difficult to get together logistics for us but we love to hear from people. We've been really lucky this year to hear from many people at different lighthouses who are listeners. It's been awesome. Yeah we love it.

25:20 Connect us to it. We live vicariously through people who live near lighthouses. So that's the San Abel stoop. The causeway so the road the bridge yeah connecting the island to the mainland was not constructed until 1963. So before that time a ferry had transported people to and from the island. Oh so yeah there's your ferry the islander. Oh cute nice old cars. Isn't that cool. It'd be a great job. What is this picture from? So this is the ferry going about to land on San Abel Island. Is this from US LHS archives or is this? This is from lighthousefriends.com. Okay it's one of their four or five images they had referenced. They probably got this from US LHS. Yeah just for a note for people if you ever want to see well the US LHS has an archives where you can find literally everything. You can find keepers logs from any period of time any lighthouse. You can find like what's it called? Not biographies. Logs. But just pages on keepers and stuff that happened the lighthouse. Pictures of all kinds of stuff. I thought this was cool. Yeah.

26:32 Let's do our next. Yeah it's a good image too. Very cool. Another black and white image. The first settlement on the island was actually 1833. Oh my. Small group of settlers petitioned for a lighthouse at that time but the request was not successful. Because there was so few of them. Neither was a settlement. Yeah. Oh no. They were only there for five years. So disease and hardship the settlement was abandoned. Oh man. Well they're really separated. So that was the first first recorded peoples on the island. Yeah. So 1830s and then to the east we just talked about that that bay over there. That bay started to grow in business transporting cattle from the United States who'd come down to Florida. Okay. Cattle would get on boats and then they'd be shipped to Cuba. So that was kind of the first pathway growth of industry in the area. So that necessitated another lighthouse appeal. So. Spectacular. Did not mean to do that but that's cool.

27:30 This picture he's showing is cool. That's really old but it's a the dock to the lighthouse has a little pathway with like it must be like a little fence but those little bulbous things lining the way. It's like it's almost it's fancy. Yeah. And it's across the whole island at the tip. Yeah spans the whole thing. 1856 the lighthouse board recommended a beacon was established on the island. No action was taken. After the Civil War which is so crazy all this is happened before the Civil War. Yeah. Another request for finding the lighthouse funding the lighthouse 1878 accompanied by the following justification. They come forward with reasoning now. Let's quote it. A lighthouse on Sanibel Island would supply a want that has long been felt for lighthouse between the Key West and Egmont Key. The coast wise yeah coast wise trade of Florida is considerable and increasing. A great number of sailing vessels also six steamers are now plying between Key West and the ports of West Coast of Florida. Vessels bound across Florida Bay make their landfall and take their departure from the southern point of Sanibel Island. Congress again was slow but they appointed fifty thousand dollars in 1883. Wow that's a lot of money for that time period. You think it's partly because they had to ship materials or yeah the transportation. And one of those ships sank. No with stuff. Yeah for two lighthouses. Oh my god. So work on the lighthouse began in February of 1884. The

29:08 structure was fabricated in the north and shipped to the site. So the work it wasn't built on site but it was erected there. Yeah. So 162 foot long teahead wharf was built on piles which is what we see which allowed materials to be landed for the tower and two square keepers delings which are topped with tipped roofs and supported by iron pilings to the ground. Okay. So two miles from Sanibel Island the ship carrying iron work from Jersey City for the towers at both Sanibel Island and I think it's pronounced Cape San Blas BLAS. The ship sank. So crews above two lighthouse tenders assisted by a diver were able to fish up all the pieces to save except for two calorie brackets.

29:51 So like the railings. So they had to. Except for two gallery brackets. Couldn't find those. That's so cool that they could recover everything. So the lighthouse came out of the water before it was erected. They're like let's adequately soak these items and then we'll construct it. They're seasoned. Now they're seasoned by the sea blessed by Poseidon. Yeah 1884 that was. Maybe that's why it's still standing today. They had done some work on it. Oh dang. Almost good. Yeah those those brackets came from New Orleans. So the both of the towers consisted of four iron legs that were arranged in a pyramid fashion around a cylindrical column topped by a lantern room. The lantern was ready to be lit by keeper Dudley Richardson on August 20th 1884 which is still so long ago.

30:44 It is. Third order Fresnel lens or Fresnel lens. Oh gotcha. Got me. Grace the tower at a height of about 98 feet and produced a white fixed light punctuated every two minutes by a brilliant flash. So I don't know how they do that. Could you see the light at all times? And then it would flash because like it was magnified for. Can you repeat what the. So the lights constant white. Okay. And it would flash every two minutes. So there's a rotating component and then you can see the light like incidentally like you can see right at it I guess if you're close. It must be. This is why I need to do a history booy on Fresnel lenses but it must be that there were no bulls eyes on each side it was just panels and then one side maybe was just a different color or maybe there was a bulls eye that was a different color. Yeah interesting. They didn't have. Every time we look at lighthouses I think that kind of is given or just not really focused on. Yeah. So the history is not the technology is not always covered. A couple of engineers always want to know. Yeah. So the but what's cool about this lighthouse and I'll go to the next photo now is the the center column is about 20 feet off the ground. So you need there's a staircase to get to it that's built in as well. The staircase was lost in Hurricane Ian but I don't know why that is. I just think it's not necessary for it to go to the ground. I think it was segmented the way it was and it could be

32:18 built that way and it's like it's got the legs why would it need the center to go to the ground. It's not a structural component. Okay. Oh yeah. The structure is all exterior. Oh you would think by looking at it that the center column is what's structuring like what's keeping it in the ground. So they have a ladder that goes up to the base of the column and then from there there's a stairway. Yep stairway is internal to it. Very cool. So really that center column is just for people to go up and down and potentially also the weight system that we've talked about. The clockwork system. Again I didn't find details on that but I was fascinated by the structure so all the load supporting is on the exterior. Compared to like a brick tower that yes or concrete tower. You wouldn't think that'd be enough when you look at it. There's eight legs going to the ground that look small. Yeah. Yeah from the bottom to connect to the ground. You can see there's the four major corners which are probably the largest load and then in between the four corners there's a segment that goes up just two segments and then from there you just have the four that go up. Yeah. Interesting. I'm sure it's engineered. Oh yeah. I mean if it can withstand hurricanes then. And its design was used a couple of different times. Is it brown because it's rusted? It is corroded. Yep. Okay. And it was restored in 2013. I don't know the this says 2021 so this would have been right before. It's a solid decade ago.

33:46 It's still as far as lighthouses go that's true pretty recent. Accompanied by his wife and two sons Henry Shanahan the first keeper. I thought it was Dudley. This is 1888. Oh I see. You're right it was Dudley. It was 1884 so he was the first keeper. Okay. Second keeper I believe and there's only I have a list at the bottom. I think there's eight throughout the lighthouse's history. There was eight headkeepers. Yeah. 23 assistant. 23. Yeah crazy. So Dudley was 1884 to 1892. Shanahan was not the headkeeper when he arrived. That's why. Okay. 1892 took over.

34:30 So glad we got that ironed out. Yeah. So he moved from Key West in 1888. Two years later became the assistant keeper of the lighthouse. When Richardson resigned Dudley in 1892 Shanahan applied for the position of head keeper. Nice. At first the lighthouse authorities refused to promote him since he was illiterate. How do you write keepers logs? You wouldn't. And how do you even be an assistant keeper? I mean I'm we're just I'm so spoiled we're born in then late 1900s like we're old now. Well you know around that time it's like it's kind of like I was just thinking about this the other day like I would have never learned stained glass if I weren't an apprentice for a stained glass artist in this time period. Like well like the modern thing of like working on cars I don't understand I like I'm a mechanical engineer as far as what I studied in school sure but that doesn't mean I can fix cars. Yeah. I just watch YouTube and I'm like okay that's how that guy did it. Yeah. He learned it from a book maybe or a master mechanic but like the things that were empowered to do today are so crazy. Yeah. It is like you didn't go to school unless you were gonna be a scholar or like a politician or something it's like if you were doing something like being an assistant keeper it's it's more like you need to be an apprentice for something and I remember reading to that one of the camera where oh Little Ross I think one of the keepers he was an apprentice for like a

36:06 boat something boat related or camera but yes and then over time he had seen the lighthouse so much that he wanted to be a part of that and that's how he became a lighthouse keeper. Fascinated by it. But like you just didn't go to school unless it was relevant to what you were planning on doing which was not like today it's like you have to be educated and then you can decide what you want to do whether that just be through high school or middle school or whatever. And there's you know there's pressures through that just like you know I know being what 16 17 years old and supposedly deciding like what your life is gonna be. Oh disaster. I don't know that that was that different actually because 16 17 back then you probably have to be making money. Yeah you have to be close to being an adult so gotta be responsible for something but so that was he was literate but he threatened to otherwise resign so they gave him the position. That was easy. Master negotiator. After a few years of living in the lighthouse Shanahan's wife died I'm not sure how. Leaving him with seven children. Oh good heavens. In town. In town. A widow named Irene Rutland happened to also be living with her five children as a single woman. Oh my gosh. Soon she and Shanahan struck it off and got married. They combined forces. And they had another son. And together they had 13 children. That's a lot. So yes. Oh gosh.

37:35 This is written on the. Needless to say the family helped run the lighthouse. Yeah they have. That's good. One keeper and now 15 assistant keepers. 13 children. Or 13. The Shanahan's had a pet deer that would race up and down the beach along with a trained cat that would roll over like a dog. Good cat. Henry passed away in 1913 after 23 years of the lighthouse. His son Eugene who had served. Yeah served as a lighthouse assistant for several years. Would later come back in 1924 so 11 years later to carry on the family's connection to the lighthouse. Kind of neat. Clarice Rutland one of the step sons. Oh Clarence. I'm sorry Clarence.

38:19 Served as an assistant keeper from a stint in the 1920s and again in the 30s. So the family was around for a while. You had that many kids. You know. Rutland left the description of the daily routine of the lighthouse. I'm not sure which one. Which Rutland. There were two men at a time. We changed watch each night at 12. It was an oil light then. We take a five gallon can up full in the afternoon. Pump the light and bring the can down empty in the morning. Just crazy. Five gallons. It's always five gallons. Those Home Depot buckets are five gallons. Crazy. So heavy. Somebody had to be with it almost every minute it being the light. Yeah. During the day we had curtains we hung around every one of those prisms. So a lot of work which is nothing new for lighthouses but it's always crazy. Yeah. Another key event in 1919. The assistant keeper was shot and killed. What? Yep. Where? In Fort Myers Press. June 23rd of 1919 reported that Jesse W Lee of Fort Myers had shot and killed Richard T Barry, assistant keeper of the lighthouse, the day before around noon after Barry had reportedly insulted Lee's wife and refused to apologize. Five months later a jury in Fort Myers acquitted Lee of the murder. He admitted killing the assistant keeper but claimed it was in self-defense. Wait a minute. I think I've heard this story before. No way.

39:44 Yes. No way. Like why? Was this a story where he went and got his gun from the house and then came back and shot him? I don't know. Because either something very similar happened to somebody else. I'll have to. It's in the station's logbook that the head keeper Charles Williams received word about 130 that his assistant had been shot and killed the day he was killed. Was it outside the lighthouse or was it like out? It was in town I think. Okay then never mind. Oh business. Yeah I think he was off. I think he was off duty. The next day, the next day the lighthouse tender ship Ivy arrived at the station bringing Mrs.

40:26 Barry, who was the wife of the deceased and a new assistant keeper. Oh my gosh. The next day. They're like we have this guy lined up ready to go. He was only 45 years old. They took him to Key West for burial. He'd been in Key West as an engineer before his role as a keeper. 1923 the dwellings were modernized receiving indoor plumbing and bathrooms and enclosed porches. Actually sounds like a great place to be. Yeah. Same year the light was converted from kerosene to acetylene gas which is like those small lanterns you pump up. You press your head and they glow white. Oh yeah. Roughly 670 acres were originally reserved for the lighthouse but by 23, 1923, the boundary of the station property extended only a thousand feet west of the lighthouse. As we've talked about before islands are moving. So it was getting a little tight. Yeah. There was a Coast Guardsman named Bob England. He came to the lighthouse in 1946 with his wife May and infant daughter Margaret. The following year hurricane caused severe erosion of the island and left one of the dwellings standing in a foot of water. Due to in part to concerns of erosion the lighthouse is automated in 1949. So that was only three years after he arrived. This particular keeper. England was assigned to the Fort Myers Coast Guard station from where it continued to serve a standable light island along with other gates navigation the area. So it's kind of interesting and like oh there's corrosion going on. Maybe that's one of

42:01 the reasons the tower is built the way it is with the main component not on the ground. Because it would just invite too much. Well the elevation of St. Abel Island is three feet above sea level. Oh. So they just assume at some points it'll be flooded. Maybe. I've never considered that until just now. So even though he moved away the dwellings were not really ever empty. The island had a large part of it in 1949 assigned to the J.N. Bing Darling National Wildlife Fresh Food which is still there. Okay. Which is really nice. It's a gorgeous section of the island. Charles LeBuff lived in the assistance keeper cottage for 21 years starting in 1958. So they were rented out or you could buy them. They're rented out and I think up until now I know I'm gonna mention it. I've got a lot I'm just reading here. I'm sorry guys but I think it's really interesting. Oh yeah. But I'm pretty sure they were occupied by government officials that for taking care of the lighthouse grounds that was their rent. So they were they're rented in a way. Okay. They're owned by the city. Yeah. And yeah I'm gonna shortcut part of this. And the shortcut says they went from the Coast Guard who stopped taking care of them to the BLM the Bureau of Land Management which is big up in Montana Wyoming and then Bureau of Land Management sold it almost gifted it to the city. So the city owns the lighthouse again and still manages it. Okay. So that

43:35 will fast forward us some in the story. Sanibel County Council awarded almost 270 thousand dollars to a company in 2013 to restore the lighthouse. In that restoration they replaced this company replaced sections of deteriorated steel on the tower then sanded and painted the exterior. The city of Sanibel certainly showed its commitment to preserving the lighthouse property. 2016 the lighthouse dwellings were added to the city of Sanibel's a register of the stress register for historic sites and structures. Okay. Or the resources. There was a man come lots of those. So I just I don't know I think it's pretty neat. Those dwellings are gone now aren't they? They are. Dang. Here's before and after Hurricane Ian. Oh no. This is actually the image this came from Instagram. Yeah.

44:27 This is actually the image that our friend had shared with us. Ah it's just the island. Everything's gone. It's and it's so it changed the silhouette of the island entirely. Like it's it's so it ate away. I mean that's got to be how many feet do you think that is that now the water is right next to the lighthouse? 100 feet of beach are gone. So much vegetation destroyed. The fishing dock was gone. Houses are gone. Everything's gone. Yeah. Oh they have a dock. Yeah. So we'll I got more coverage on that. Hurricane September 22 Hurricane Ian category 4 category 4 storm ravaged Sanibel and swept away two keepers dwellings at Sanibel Island lighthouse along with the oil house and a portion of one of the four main legs that support the tower. Yeah. A section of the causeway leading to the island collapsed during the storm leaving the island cut off from immediate aid. The pieces get this the pieces of the support leg lost from the storm were later recovered. No. Yeah. Yeah. That's insane. That's barely any material. They found it.

45:39 A structural engineer hired to assess the damage structure found it the structure to be structurally sound with three legs. Oh no. So it's just left like that. They repaired it. Okay. That would have been awesome though. The stairs were gone so they had to use a ladder to even get to it and he's like yep this thing's good with his inspection. That's insane. That is crazy. Oh yeah that other leg was just for show. Also how crazy would it be like when you see how much sand has been moved by this storm like that's it's shocking that it wouldn't just be buried beneath 10 feet of sand. The fact that it's standing. Yeah. Just the tower. That's what it's made for.

46:19 That's why they do skeleton line houses. It's just they have just the wind resistance you know. Less surface area. Yeah the wind just goes right through it. There's no it's not taking the brunt of any high winds it just goes straight through the lighthouse. It's just a bunch of pipes basically. Strong stuff. So after Hurricane Ian the Florida Lighthouse Association provided $60,000 in emergency funds to help repair Sanibel Island as well as Boca Grande lighthouse and Gasparia Island lighthouse. I'm my pronunciation. You think those are nearby? They are. Okay. I checked into them. Yep. Five months to the day after Hurricane Ian nearly toppled Sanibel Island lighthouse a relighting ceremony was held at the base of the tower early in the morning of February 28th. The reactivated lighthouse served as a literal beacon of hope as an island community continued its recovery. Let's get me. Very nice. Did they so did they have the same flash pattern for the lighthouse? Did they change anything about it? No. Okay. No changes. That's good. I think I had other images that were proud and cool but I had one from the base of the tower that showed this scale of those houses and how big they are. Yeah. And now that they're gone I just I've dumbfounded by how the tower is still there and all it's gone. Yeah everything's wiped completely clean. Even there's not even any indication of foundations there anymore. Yeah. Also I just realized those keepers

47:51 cottages are enormous for just having one head keeper and an assistant sometimes. Very nice. I think they had multiple assistants at a time. Very big and fancy. Oh they had like second and third assistants. Yep. Interesting. I wanted to show you this a little bit out of order but this is so the city of Sanibel their website is mysanibel.com. Okay. But you can go to Lee County hurricane Ian damage assessments. This is my type of research. I go clicking and this is to me is crazy. I'm clicking. I'm clicking. Clicking clicking clicking clicking.

48:32 All right so this shows the county that's why the borders are where they're at. Whoa. But here's Sanibel Island. These are all instant reports of damage. So the only here this is non-residential and non-commercial this is the lighthouse or lighthouse. This is the Wildlife Reserve up here. But everywhere else. These are all like buildings they're talking about. Yeah. So you can actually go look. So reds are destroyed. Major damage minor affected. For everyone not on the Instagram we're looking at a map on the website that shows little pins all over where there was a house that was destroyed or had any sort of level of damage and at the tip is of course the lighthouse cottages. Destroyed. So it's only foundation remains is the description assessment and then if you go down I think it shows the address and I looked up the address. Yep 114 periwinkle way. Periwinkle. I'm pretty sure that was one of those two. That's interesting because often leading to a lighthouse like this road that you can obviously see in the map. They're usually named lighthouse way from what I've seen you know it's like a large percentage of the road names have something to do with lighthouses and this one's just periwinkle. It's cute. That's a that's a cooler. So that's just residential. Oh no. Show commercial as well and you know it's a big tourism area so it's packed. It's a packed island. Yeah. 535 million.

50:02 Is that million? I don't know it goes off the page. Yeah. Major three billion miners two billion total damages. Seven and a half billion dollars. That's in the county. That's from one storm. In the county. Can you zoom in on the point at the very end again? Because it doesn't say anything about the lighthouse. 153 periwinkle way. Oh that's that's another building. These are louvers. It's like a door. Wow the door got blasted inward. That is pretty crazy. They have pictures if you click on each pin they have some of them have pictures of the damage and there's this door. It's a door that's still connected to the wall that was just blasted in. Yeah so people are like oh it's just flooded. Nope it's like punching through walls. Pretty wild. Total losses major damage. This is just all these homes. All of them like almost all of them have a pin. If we go just commercial. These are all businesses. Is this all water? So like between all the houses is water? I think so. You think that's from the storm or is that was that intentional?

51:19 I think those are intentional. Oh yeah they're like channels. People have their boats in their backyards. Oh so cool but you know some of these channels don't connect to the ocean. Really? Yeah I was just looking. Like this one doesn't seem to connect anywhere. I bet she gets out somewhere. We're in we're invested now. So they can go under that bridge. Oh there it is. Oh yeah. Out north. There's Lighthouse Way. Oh there's always one somewhere. Oh do you think the light? No I was gonna say you think Lighthouse used to be in a different location. Battery's gonna die on us. Oh. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's been allocated. It was built over here so but kind of interesting and then I was gonna show you the aerial YouTube view but I don't think we need to cover that. It just shows.

52:08 We can put the link in our show notes so other people can watch it. I'll put it up while we're closing out here. Okay. And a comment one last note someone left a note on lighthousefriends.com. Craig writes the Sanibel stoop thing isn't just a catchy phrase it's for real. During a visit to the island property on a Sunday morning in 2006 we encountered dozens of people patrolling the beach looking for the perfect seashell and yes a lot of the time they're bent over all at the waist. One guy with a knatted sack knitted sack apparently made for shell collecting waited about ten yards offshore and seemed to be having the most success judging by his fullness of his sack. I was dying to join in on the fun but unfortunately I was a tired for church and soon had to leave for the other form of worship. Thank you Craig. So much fun. I love shelling. I am definitely stooped over when I'm looking for seashells and I got my knitted sack.

53:03 Yeah it's like the one time that you and I were on vacation and I found a shark tooth and I was like oh how cool I've never seen a shark tooth and then I realized by talking to the other people who were shelling that they were all looking for shark teeth and I had just happened to find one when I wasn't looking for them. I was like oh yeah I just I just found one so they're around and they were like oh you know get back. It's so crazy. It's like it is a discipline it is like a it is like a way of life some people with the shelling well you know when you take me on beach vacations I'm like well we better get up at five so that we can beat the other people to shelling you're like what? All right I'm gonna insert a picture right here Emily on her knee scooter after needing surgery didn't know it at the time we literally got an all-terrain knee scooter I carried the scooter and Emily crouched all the way across to the long beach get to the water so you could ride her scooter to shell. Although I will say dedication I first of all this was not an area that had shells it was where were we?

54:09 Hatterbanks, Hatteras. Yeah okay it was not a it had some shells but it had some but they were already picked over yeah and I'm gonna insert a picture here of Vince holding out shells because it was too hard to do it on my scooter so then he took my place shelling. Do you have a picture? I do. All right well as always we appreciate you guys listening this is a fun episode for me more professional than my last one. Thanks for covering this one. You can tell from my excitement is that I Florida's got a ton yeah they do yeah and it's fun to have a recommendation from a personal friend of ours here in Kansas City. We love it when people give us suggestions always anyone who lives near a lighthouse just send us an email you don't have to tell us stories or anything just say I live near this lighthouse you should cover it. It's a fact yeah awesome you know where to find us the lighthouse slowdown calm also on Spotify YouTube everywhere everywhere all the time we're not on Twitter but oh yeah that doesn't exist anymore now it's just X. Oh yeah we're never on X or Twitter anyways yeah reach out to us we appreciate it and thank you for listening to lighthouse lowdown.