Episode 39 - St. Augustine Lighthouse

0:00 Hi everybody, I'm Vincent. And I'm Emily. You're listening to the Lighthouse Lowdown. I would have gotten a lot of flack for that if I had not hit it on time. It was close. I don't think so. When I edit, I realize I pick on you every single time. Even when you did it right. I was like, that was kind of close. A little picking. So, welcome to the episode. I prepared this, and then the day I was going to present it, I did not. So we're all going to go on this ride together. What are you talking about? The day I was going to present this episode.

0:41 I was all prepared to go. I didn't do it that day, so now we're starting cold. Oh, I see. It was like a while ago? No, it was a couple days ago. But we're good. I've got a couple of things to show you, including a video. So we'll see how the TV works and all that. Thank you everyone for joining us. Do you have history buoy? I do. My history buoy for today is clocks. Clocks. Is this nautical themed clocks? Specifically, United States Lighthouse Service clocks. Okay. So, I'm going to start off. I'm already on board. There's a lot of different clocks used in lighthouses over the years. I'm going to cover the most prevalent from my research.

1:22 So, they were made mainly by three different manufacturers. So, we're talking US based, right? Because US Lighthouse Service. Otherwise, you can get way carried away. Yeah. Three manufacturers. And did you? No. Oh, good. I tried not to. Seth Thomas, Chelsea Clock Company, and E. Howard Company. So, here's two images of brass clocks. They're a little blown up, as you can tell. They're early 2000s images. Yeah. So, used to keep time at stations, light ships. So, you know, what are they called? Yeah, light ships, right? Lighthouse tenders. Light ships and lighthouse tenders. Make sure, wow.

2:03 Caffeine is really coming for me. So, they're significant. Timekeeping in lighthouse. Lighthouse keepers life is very significant. Because they're looking at flashing pattern. Making sure that's right. After it's set up. Making sure it's consistent. They're looking at fueling. And they're noting time of significant events in their log books. And like, if you have to rewind the clockwork mechanism and everything, that's all based on passing time. When they're coming in, when they're going from service, they note the time in the log book, as well as vessel sightings or storms, anything like that. You've got to have reliable clocks.

2:43 Yeah. They have to be very high quality. They have to be seaworthy, if you will. So, typically you'd have a small round brass clock that's mounted on a lighthouse wall or lighthouse vessel. And they're also used in the tower. Sometimes they had larger clocks that were in the lighthouse keepers house. Like, they have very ornate ones that are pendulum style. But this is the most practical. And it was a wound clock. Why brass? Because of, and this is still true today in like nautical construction. Because of its resistance to rusting, especially with saltwater spray. Nice.

3:23 Yeah, on a ship, that would be important. So, most often they were made by, the largest quantity of them was by a company in Boston, Massachusetts. This is the Chelsea Company we mentioned. So, Chelsea Cloud Company. And they're still in business today. Cool. Wow. So, this is a snap from their website. Very fancy. Very expensive. They should have ship bells. All the ship bells. Look at the cost. Why? Yep. Anywhere from $1,200 to $6,100 for these clocks. And these are all decorative. So, they're probably still very high quality. But they've gotten a little ornate.

4:05 And you can see on the left, they've got a bunch of collections. Yeah. They're like gifts under $300. Yeah. If you go to Target, it's gifts under $10. Yeah. So, I think I have one more image. No, I don't. Ignore that. I'm not looking. All right. Sometimes they have pendulum clocks, like I talked about. The other type. Like grandfather clocks or just... Or even like small grandfather, just like on the wall mounted. And then the other type that's really popular. I didn't add an image, but there's lots of images. Pocket watches. Small pocket watches were really big with lighthouse keepers. Most of them have US LHS engraved on them.

4:45 Pretty cool. Very collectible today. I want one of those. So, those are usually bought from a vendor. So, they weren't made by three companies like most of these clocks were. Yeah. That's my lighthouse, boy. It's clocks. Nice. And you mentioned eight days once recently in an episode. It's going to come up again in this episode. Eight days is significant for several reasons, but these are eight day clocks as well. Cool. So, most of the clocks were... Wait, what does that mean? You'd wind them every eight days. Or really every week you'd wind them, but I had eight days of runtime. I forgot you had to wind old clocks. Yeah, no electricity to them. So, like the holes in the face of the clock there on the top left.

5:28 You put a key in, a round key, and then you wind it, which is the same as like a grandfather clock. So, what do they do with their watches? They wound their watches? Yeah. Watches. What? As well, watches. I don't think they last eight days. I doubt it. Like pocket watches and even some nice... How could I have not known this? Like nice wrist watches. The bezel on it, like I have an Apple watch I'm holding up. You don't wind this, but it's the same idea. Yeah. The bezel, you can actually pull them out and wind it, and it actually charges a spring that charges... It twists a spring. Oh, it twists tension. And then someone who knows... Yeah. Someone who knows better than I can explain watch work. There's different types of movements. Interesting. Yeah.

6:08 They have some, I wish I had included another picture on like Patriot collection or nautical clocks that are like black metal and they have a swinging face on them. So, like it covers it. Yeah. Like that aren't quite as ornate, but they're still a thousand dollars. I want to see nautical clock collection. I'm going to pull it up. See Patriot collection, like that style where it's got this like the face, like a porthole face, nautical clocks. Yeah. That's perfect. Well, I was wrong. 320 bucks. That's almost... I think it's cool. That almost goes under gifts under $300. 250. There you go. Keeps going. I like those navy ones. Those are cool.

6:48 Yeah. These don't look very nautical to me. I was expecting like, you know, with how expensive they are, they can't really make them. I'm thinking tacky nautical. And I think that just wouldn't fly with... I don't think that's their target. But like, I really do enjoy this 24 hour clock, which is cool. They have a 12 hour standard and then 24 hour. And it's like black dial, white face. Little crescent moon. Yeah. It's just classy. It looks tough. Like, I like this, I don't know what to call it, porthole, right? Like a window. I want to see what's behind it. Inspired by Chelsea's World War II Navy engine room.

7:28 I would love one. If anybody at Chelsea Clock Company wants to sponsor the lighthouse lowdown or Seth Thomas or E Howard Company, if you're still around, let us know. I know Chelsea is though. And I was drawn to this website. Well, cool history, Bowie. Thank you. A little different. I've had that one in my pocket for a long time. Awful. But yeah, so today's I'm just going to jump into it. OK. Today, first I'm going to tell you about the location, the town we're in, which is not labeled on this image.

8:08 Oh, so colorful. Lighthouse back there. Oh, St. Augustine, Florida. Oh, yes. Also known as Florida. So this is what the one if anyone listened to our lighthouse cocktail episode, this is what my wine gift was modeled after, which I have right here. Oh, very nice. I'm going to put that on the table. That opened. This is an open. I'm going to talk about it later on. OK. For the moment, I'm just going to set it down. You can hear the nice. I thought it was going to be more like a clink and not so much like a thump. So I don't remember which slides I have. So we're going to go through that together. So we're just living. Yeah, but we're just living.

8:49 So St. Augustine, Florida is on the northeast coast of Florida on the water. OK, it is about 45 minutes from Jacksonville South. So Jacksonville is the largest city that's nearby. Orlando is not far. I want to say an hour, hour and a half, maybe. It is technically America's oldest city. Oh, my. It's founded in September of 1565 by Spanish explorers in Florida. I believe in their Spanish pronunciation is the land of flowers. So state of Florida today. Cool. It's the oldest continuously inhabited European established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States.

9:30 OK, United States. So it's you could say the oldest town is Native American developments, of course, but the oldest English Western settled. So there is a lot of history for that reason in St. Augustine. It's a really cool little town. Do they have like ruins like cool? Yes. There's a fort, there's ruins, there's an old town, there's a college that used to be a hotel. It's like all in one building. It's beautiful. We're going to we're going to talk about it. OK, there's only like 15000 residents is what the Internet. I was really surprised given this image of like so much traffic going on. That is an island and I can't it technically it might be a different city like township.

10:14 This bridge is kind of neat. I'm kind of going on tangents. I got coffee and me the bridge. I want to say it's the Lions Gate or Gate of Lion. I can't remember if there's two lions that are marble statue that are on the end of the bridge that are modeled after the Medici lions, which are in Italy. What are those? And we saw copies of the Medici lions in Sweden in front of the palace made of bronze and so copies like that's what they look like except in stone. Yep. I want to say marble, but the original Medici. So I went on a tangent. It took me an hour, hour and a half.

10:55 The original Medici lions are carved in stone. One was a long time ago and the other was made as a as a partner to it. Also, like maybe 1700s. And so they're very old and they're at the Medici family residence, which is in Italy. I think in Florence. Yeah, I would go on a tangent, too, if it had something to do with like old art for some reason. Sculptures and like statues and stuff. I really like them. Yeah. It's the lion that has its paw on a globe or on a ball. It's an orb contested of what it actually is. Oh, there's there's some drama. So there's two copies here.

11:35 There's copies all over the world. But I thought that was kind of fun. Cool. I would really like to visit St. Augustine and you're going to see why. Now you're really interested. Wow. Mm hmm. There's the old town kind of a market. I see ice cream on the left. That's where I should have my macaron shop. Shop on the right. You can sell macarons there with some humidity like it's Florida. So there's been hurricanes here and there. So it is what it is. This is the lighthouse itself. So the first thing that drew me to this lighthouse was actually their website.

12:15 I think I found it's not expecting. I was wondering if I should interrupt and throw a guess out there for what actually drew you to this lighthouse. And I never would have guessed. Well, their website is really good. And I'll we'll talk about it. But there's the wine bottle. So I was in Orlando, Florida, visiting a friend of mine, Jackson, that you know well. Now he lives here. But when he lived in, I was Tampa. He lived in Orlando before Tampa. But in Tampa, we went to Publix and they had this bottle of wine. He's like, you got to see this. I didn't know anything about it. It is a lighthouse shaped glass, which is modeled exactly after the St. Augustine lighthouse.

12:55 I'm going to talk all about the winery as well. But so that led me to the website. And here we are because their website is awesome. And I'm actually going to show it to you. So there's a lot to see. I recommend you go and click around on your own. But I mean, like the interfacing, the symbols cool there. They have a nice logo. Like the format of the website is good. And then you can see there's a bunch of side links and more information. They do a lot of cool stuff at this. It's aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. You can visit. There's also ghost tours. No. I heard St. Augustine's pretty haunted. It is. Are you going to tell us about those? I know Halloween's over.

13:35 We're not going into depth on the ghost tours. I figured that might be a separate. There's so much to talk about. So but I talked with her name is Emma on email. She works with the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum. Maritime. Maritime. Gosh. And she gave me permission to check this out on our episode today. So here you go. Nice. And she also wanted me to share a couple of things. So she didn't say this before. She said they offer a new tour called the Twilight at the Top. So you can see a one hour after hours exclusive experience, see a working lighthouse and an active aid to navigation, learn how a lighthouse functions, and enjoy the view from the top at twilight, which is pretty rare.

14:20 That would be so cool. So you can see the sunset and see the lighthouse on. And yeah, you'd have the lens going behind you. It says it's weather dependent. Of course. Children must be 44 inches or taller and accompanied by an adult. Yeah. Upcoming events. I don't know when we're airing, but December 6th is Luminary Night, the lighthouse illuminations, tides, tidings, and trees. Then they have events November 22nd through January 13th. If they want to experience those lighthouse events and after hours shows. I see. They also have a children's winter camp. So she asked that I share that with our listeners.

15:00 So they've got. Why would we be doing. Yeah. I can't continue. No, please. What would you be doing? All of it? Oh, I was going to say I'd be doing myself a service by sending my child, my future child to a winter camp at a life. I'd be like, go on, go on, have so much fun. I live vicariously through you. Here's the camera. Take some pictures. Yeah. Go on, kid. Take some pictures. Ask some ghost questions. Dark of the moon. I can't speak. Dark of the moon ghost tour. Ghost tales. Sunset moonrise tour. House of Illuminations. Champagne and hors d'oeuvres. Or is that? Sunset moonrise tour. Oh, yeah. Enjoy breathtaking views of the sunset and full moon rise with champagne and hors d'oeuvres at the top of the tower.

15:44 Yeah. So they really probably bring in a lot of revenue for. Yeah. It looks to be in great shape. They do. And they're the reason I was like, why is this so good? And I told her what's her name? Emma. Yeah, I could think you remembered. I told Emma when I first reached out to her, I was like, your website is outstanding. We look into a lot of Lighthouse websites. We are probably the top one percent of people who are doing that. Yeah. And they have I mean, there's none that I've seen that are awful, but there are some like this one that are just outstanding. The graphics are great. Photography is great. Got so many options. And I saw at the bottom, they are partners with both the American Alliance of Museums, which I wasn't familiar with, but also the.

16:27 American Alliance. They're a Smithsonian affiliate. Oh, my gosh. So big, big, big tourism, big museum efforts. Emma is the I believe she's the lead of their marketing team. So check out the website. Also see if I can find it quickly. Research. All those no gimmicks. You should talk. I want to go here. We could talk about it more. But they had so they have preservation like they have lamp is what it's called. Lighthouse archaeology. Here we go. Lamp. St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program. So it's like maritime archaeology, specifically not just lighthouses, but also maritime themed shipwrecks.

17:13 And they're doing projects and they have research like this is legitimate and they have programs. I can't speak to when they are available and who's serving on, but they have done this for a long time. There's part of the shipwreck stuff. It's just super cool. It's not something I see very often. I really love to do it like a shipwreck episodes or pirate episodes, but we only come out with one every two weeks. And I don't know if we'd be disappointing people by doing something other than a lighthouse on our two weeks. If people would only let us know. Yeah, you guys should let us know. There's lots of things that are outside of just the lighthouse here, but I think it's fair to say and maritime museum.

17:59 The lighthouse is obviously a beautiful thing to go see even if you were just driving by, honestly. So, and you can see it's a big scale. We'll talk about the lighthouse next. So that's their website. Highly recommend checking it out. You see the lighthouse and there she is. Very nice. Little red top. Lots of trees around which you wouldn't expect because you can see that the ground is all sand. Yeah, and it's on an island. So this is St. Augustine. The city is to the left in our screen view. So it's got a long history and it didn't always look like this as we know from a lot of lighthouse history. So the first settlement I talked about was the Spanish settlers.

18:40 1500 to 1800 they were here. The Spanish had the first lighthouse here and there's no images or depictions I've seen of it so I didn't include any. We're just going to talk about the modern tower as far as what we can look at. But 1500 to 1800s it was wood and stone that was locally sourced. That was their version of a lighthouse tower. Oh wait, you're saying, oh, you're saying when the Spanish were here they had a lighthouse. So the Spanish first arrived in what was Florida now and they had domination, they had domain rather of this area until 1823 then that was given to the United States.

19:23 So the US got control, excuse me, 1821 and immediately they wanted to upgrade the tower because the reason this area is so valuable is there's this spit you can see that runs far north and south. So it's a barrier and you can have ships and portage in here in this area. Wow, I didn't know that you were, I thought you were talking about like the building of the city and not building of a lighthouse in the 1500s. Lighthouse as well. And they don't have any, they don't have anything. I didn't find it. It might someone who's a Spanish history in Florida specialist may know, but I couldn't find it. So 1823 the United States Congress permitted $5,000 to be used to update the Spanish built tower.

20:11 So like there's a tower there. We just need to, you know, bring it up to 1823 spec. So they modified it and it was a 30 foot tower and it went into service in 1824 and here is several. So 1842 is written on the image. Sight washed away. Yeah. This is so pretty. It is. You know, this is a totally different type of lighthouse than what they have, like not that they have to, but it's like whenever they rebuilt the Alcatraz lighthouse, it's like two very different vibes going on. This one more homey and you know, historical and the other one's like modern and fun to climb.

20:56 This one's beautiful. It's, I would love to see it in color, but yeah. So the image date contradicts the lighthouse friends is my main source for this episode. They had do a great job. I love their source. But they said 1842 is 30 foot here and lighthouse friends had it as 1824. Okay. So maybe one of the other typo. Yeah. The lamp at that time was 10 oil lamps that were set in silver bowl shape reflectors. Okay. So they didn't have a Fresnel lens at that time for now. Gosh. Close. We're still learning. Yeah. So it was upgraded to a fourth order revolving Fresnel lens in 1854 and the height was increased over 50 feet.

21:40 There you go. And then, gosh, another contradiction. What does it say? 1848, 1848 and it says 40 foot there. 1852 is the final. Okay. We're good. We're up top now. That's the Fresnel lenses placed in this image. Okay. 1859. Um, just a moment in history, Joseph and drew a ND REU the fourth. He was the fourth head keeper of the light. He fell 60 feet to his death. Oh no. The lashing on the scaffolding he was using gave away while he was whitewashing the tower and he would go on to become one of the ghosts that is hunting. I mean not excellent, but. Might as well. Whitewashing, it'll get you.

22:21 There's a lot of stories of keepers falling. Scaffolding, lashing, they'll all get you. His wife Maria, she took over as the keeper and served until it was extinguished shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, American Civil War, which was from 1861 to 1865. So also another ghost moment. Joseph Pesetti, a Confederate soldier, he was wounded while he was trying to remove the lens from the lighthouse in hopes that the union would not make use of the lighthouse as they were going to lose Florida potentially. He was wounded by the lens or by invaders?

23:02 By the lens. He heard himself, but he's another lighthouse fights back. Yeah, it's like no. Keep lighting my Fresnel lens must keep spinning. So the tower was deactivated for that period of time. It was reactivated 1867 after the war and a new lens had to be furnished. Yeah, because that guy messed up the other one. It was clearly evident that erosion was endangering the lighthouse. Oh no, here we go again. On July 1st of 1870, the distance from the keepers dwelling to the high water mark was 70 feet, which is quite a bit. By November, so this is July to November, the distance had shrunk to just 40 feet.

23:46 So the whole landmass was just going. It wasn't like turning slowly. What was the three sisters? What was that one? Was that up in East Coast for sure? Yeah, that was Cape Cod area. Okay. Yeah, they're on edge of a cliff though. That well and that erosion was straight on. I think this erosion was collapsing into the water. Oh, okay. Wow. Not good. The lighthouse board determined that a new lighthouse was needed and a five acre tract was located just like half a mile inland. They acquired it after some old Spanish land grants and claims to settlers were straightened out. So more paperwork for the lighthouse board, but they got it done.

24:28 The plans were drawn up by a man named Paul Peltz, P-E-L-Z. He was a chief draftsman of the lighthouse board and he also later would go on to be one of the two architects that's responsible for the Library of Congress. Oh my gosh. Cool. Yeah. Very cool. Construction began in 1872 using $60,000. $60,000? $60,000. Holy cow. And then immediately the next year they added $20,000. Oh yeah. The walls had grown to a height of just a few feet when all the funds were gone. No. Yes. How is that possible? Construction planning has been going well for a long time. Wow. Did they buy materials with that or? Mm-hmm.

25:08 Okay. Materials and they hired. So like labor they ran out. They signed contracts. They had an additional $25,000, allowed the work to continue and finally it was done. So the sum is $60,000 plus $20,000 plus $25,000. So $105,000 in 1800s, which sounds like a lot. Yeah. In 1874 finally it was re-lit. Okay. So. What kind of lens did they have? We've been through some things. Also a fourth order I believe. Okay. It's first order now, isn't it? Yes it is now. This is the old one we're looking at. The new one, it is a first order lens. I'm repeating my paragraph, sorry. Gotcha. It is a first order lens and it's 165 feet tall. It's the one that is shown today and the day mark is the same as Hatteras.

25:50 It is a spiral black and white. So the left image is in 1966. So it's been like 80 or 90 years since it was constructed. Wow. The tower at that time. Within a month of this construction in 1874 a flock of ducks flew into the lantern room. It's always ducks flying. What are they doing? Ducks man. They're not, you don't need to do that. They're like ooh a laser beam. Like you're not moths, don't go into the light. Well they're big moths. They broke three panes of glass and they caused slight damage to the lens. Geez. Which would cause it to need to be replaced. But first a wire screen was installed around the lantern room.

26:32 Of course. That was their first move. The tower, the construction is kind of interesting. The brick came from Alabama, granite for the base came from Georgia, iron all came from Philadelphia. So it was a big old deal. The lens, the new one came from France as well. It was a fixed white light pattern and every three minutes displayed a white flash. I believe that's the same too today. 165 foot tall to the focal plane. The focal plane and it was painted of course the black and white spiral bands to match Cape Hatteras. Nice. They did it on purpose. Yeah.

27:13 And honestly if you look at the construction, it's pretty similar to Cape Hatteras. The base octagonal shape and then the really the whole thing looks quite similar to Hatteras. When I first saw this wine bottle, which is very accurate, good for them, it reminded me of Cape Hatteras. But you know, only a foot tall. I thought that they used the same plans for this one, Cape Hatteras. Maybe they did and my notes are confusing that Mr. Pels also was the architect of Hatteras. I can't remember. Okay. I think that's a big moment we should figure out in Lighthouse history of who was the architect and maybe it's several people because architects are huge in Lighthouse development.

28:00 We've talked about often there'll be a nameplate or a plaque. Like here is the engineer, Lighthouse engineer, which is a cool job title. Here I am just a mechanical engineer. Measley. Well, like Bodie Island and Kuretuk were the same plans that they used for the Lighthouse. They're identical except for their different colors. Scale and Denmark, right? On the right image, you can see that white building at the base. That was originally built as a keeper's office on one side and then the other side was large drums of oil. Lard oil was the original fuel. It was converted to kerosene and they had to build a new brick oil house that was safer or distance away.

28:40 I assume that's the one on the right, the small shack because kerosene is apparently a lot more flammable and volatile compared to previous lamp oil. That keeper's dwelling is pretty nice. It'll come up. Oh no. While work was underway on the new tower, the Lighthouse board submitted a following report. I'm going to speak in a fun accent. A keeper's dwelling will be required as there was not sufficient or proper accommodations at the old Lighthouse for three keepers, the number required to attend a first order Lighthouse. And the distance is too great for the new tower to ensure proper attendance, even if the present dwelling was suitable. So they already got this contract to build this big for the time and still big today, beautiful Lighthouse.

29:25 And they're like, we need more money. I see. And they wrote so eloquently. But the original keeper's dwelling was connected to the Lighthouse. The original keeper's dwelling, not this Lighthouse and the original footprint Lighthouse was connected. Oh, so they demolished the Lighthouse part. That tower. Yeah. That tower is no good, but we could use that house was the original idea. Oh, I see. They're saying it's too far away. It's too far. Is it in this picture? It's gone. Oh, she go. She's gone. She went into the water. Oh, 1875. Oh, man. Yeah. They just let it go. Yeah. I'll get right to it.

30:06 So Congress gave twenty thousand dollars at that request to build to build this new duplex, which is beautiful. In the meantime, they lived in that dwelling at the old one. They continued to live there until the duplex was built, finished in 1875. It was 1880s. Five years later, they watched the old one literally topple into the water. So it was it was within five years. It was actually in the water. So not been very good. So are the ruins just like underwater? You know, I don't know. That would be cool. I've never considered that. Maybe that's part of LAMP. Their archeology, archaeological stuff.

30:47 I wonder if it wasn't like recovered and put somewhere. I mean, I guess they'd just be stoned. Maybe it went to heck before went in the water. But as of 1875, when they finished this tower, there were three keepers stationed there. The day was divided into three eight hour watches. You see eight again. The primary responsibility, of course, is caring for the light. They lugged 30 pound cans of lard oil, kerosene up the 214 stairs. And periodically, they had to wind the weight, which is 275 pounds in this tower. Oh, yeah. That, of course, revolves the lantern mechanism. They also maintain the buildings, provided tours to visitors, even in those times.

31:31 And when necessary, they served as lifesavers. This function is demonstrated by two of the following entries from the station's logbook. September 23rd of 1887, schooner schooner schooner. I think it's schooner dream went on the sandbar near old lighthouse at three a.m. Nine passengers rescued by keepers lost the anchor sails and small boat. Oh, man. The vessel floated off in damaged condition. The vessel floated off canoe. Anything about it. November 13th of 1890, three years later, five p.m. the steamer star spangled banner foundered on the bar.

32:12 A total wreck. Oh, no. Crew were rescued by the keeper. OK. The keepers are busy. Yeah. Busy. You say three days later. Yeah. Three years later. So why is everyone crashing? That's a lighthouse. There's a lighthouse. It's a new lighthouse in those years. They weren't used to it. It's been there, well, 15 years, roughly 15, 20 years at that time. But I think information moved a lot slower in the 1800s. And also these could be storm conditions. One was September and one was November. So not, you know, the nicest. One of them also was three a.m. Windy and stormy. Yeah. Of course, we hear this a lot about lighthouses.

32:54 The effects of a powerful earthquake rocked Charleston, South Carolina, which is kind of nearby. What year is that? 1886. The effects were felt in St. Augustine. William A. Horn provided an entry in the notebook. I'm not going to read it because it's it is interesting, but we've heard a lot of them. Yeah. Dogs barked. There was a big boom. The tower swayed. Oh, yeah. So not good. I don't mean to minimize it, but it wasn't, you know, what was the one in 1904? In San Francisco? I think so. That was like the city was on fire. Yeah. And it was toppled. It wasn't that extent, but still quite exciting for the man who was in charge of a tower.

33:38 Swaying buildings are it's the most uncomfortable feeling. Like when you're like when you're in a really, really tall building and it's windy and you can just feel that it's very slightly moving. It's like, why are you doing that? Yeah, very scary. Here's a fun piece of history. I feel like I've heard this somewhere else. Life at the station was full of varied activities for the Keepers children. One noted story involves Cardell Cracker Daniels, son of Keeper Cardell D. Daniels. I was like, that can't be right. Cracker would regularly use the tall tower in the brickyard as a launching pad for his model airplanes and parachutes. Oh, that would be cool.

34:18 After safely parachuting several inanimate objects off the tower, Cracker decided it was time for a live experiment. The cat. Cracker's sister Wilma had a cat named Smokey. Yes. She was selected as the paratrooper. Didn't this happen somewhere else? No, no. I covered this incident because Smokey lives at the lighthouse now as a ghost, as a ghostly cat. Very nice. I covered it in I think last year's Halloween episode. OK. I was going to say, I've heard this before. It's been a year. OK. The cat didn't die with the parachute. It did not die. Yeah. But God, those kids would get a thrashing if like you just threw our cat. He never told anyone.

34:59 Watch. Eventually he did. After a couple of practice descents from lesser heights, the poor cat, the reluctant cat was tossed from the top of the tower with the parachute strapped to its back. When the frightened feline reached the ground, it bolted from the area. Unaware of Cracker's antics, Wilma searched far and near for her cat over the next several days. A month passed by before Smokey finally returned home. But it wasn't until several years later that the family learned the reason for the cat's death. It ran off with a parachute still attached to him. I guess a month of lugging around. It was awfully persistent. I bet it got out. The Keepers dwelling was electrified in the year 1925, but the tower was not wired up until 1936.

35:44 So during that time, they had electricity in the tower and the Keepers duplex there, which looks really nice. It's still there. And then but the tower was still running on oil. OK. So you know that that helped out. But the eventually 1936, it was electrified. De-staffing happened in 1955. But there were still local people who would come check on it. They didn't have they just didn't have to live there. It wasn't full time. Yeah. They're called lamp lighters. Well, they didn't have Coast Guard people working. Not yet. Civilian Keepers. Oh, yep. I think they were actually volunteers, but they would, you know, polish the lens. They'd switch on and off the light and then.

36:27 Yeah. Oh, it wasn't automated. That's why the light was not automated, even though it was electric. So they still had people. The lamp lighters would come even though there was no fuel oil being burned. So automation occurred in 1971. They put a solar beacon on top. So it would sense when the light needs to be on and off, which I I've never really thought about that. Like how that is it clockwork or digital or wireless signal? I have a note to cover automation in a history buoy, but it's kind of seems like it would be a lot of work to research. So I haven't gotten around to doing that yet. It'll be big. It's going to be huge.

37:07 Huge. Unfortunately, in the late 1960s, the dwelling was boarded up, was declared surplus and put on the auction block. Oh, no. So the St. John's County is the county in which is located. They were negotiating the purchase price of the dwelling when it was completely gutted by an arson fire. July 28th of 1970. The fire did reduce the purchase price, but may be restoring the structure, a daunting task. Yeah. The county considered tearing it down and a group called the Junior Service League of St. Augustine, which is found in 1935 by a group of women interested in improving social, educational and cultural conditions of St. John's County.

37:48 They offered to take on the restoration in 1980. So it sat for a while. But what they did is awesome because starting in 1980 at a pretty much decrepit arson condition, it started to be restored. Eight years later, it was opened as the Maritime Museum. Oh, my. Wait, you say eight years? 1989. That took a long time. Do they know? Do they find out who started the fire? No. Could be ghosts. Could be someone who was involved with they wanted to purchase it or didn't want it sold. No ghost would no ghost would burn down their old house. Well, a lot of energy for them to conjure up a little flame. Yeah.

38:28 Well, Sparky Boys 1990. So just a year later, the Junior Service League, they signed a lease with a Coast Guard for the lighthouse. And the following year equipped with safety features, the lighthouse itself was opened again to the public for climbing. So it was it was open really early on, which I don't hear about often. Yeah, like tours were provided by the original keepers here and then not available for a long time. And then once they upgraded safety features, like you can see on the new tower, the railing is really good. Yes. You know, it's clearly built for visitors in 1986. So during we'll call it modern times, a bullet was shot from a 30-06 rifle that shattered 19 prisms in the historical Fresnel lens.

39:11 Who the hell did that? Frank Mears, who was a caretaker of the light at that time. Why did he shoot the light? He didn't shoot it. He called the FBI. What? He said, my tower has been shot. He called the FBI. They did an investigation and found powder burns from a rifle on a nearby palm tree. So who did it? Eventually, they found the 14 year old responsible for the shooting. But the senseless act led to the lens being taken out of commission in September 1991. He needs to go to prison. That lens. So he probably took his dad's rifle and shot at a light because it's something he's 14. He's an idiot. Yeah, he is.

39:52 And he's like, look at this. I'm going to shoot at this. Oh. So do you know how expensive that is? I know. I know. It was expensive. So the light was out of commission and the airport beacon was placed on the tower at 91 on top of the tower above the lantern room. Thank goodness. They balanced options of removing the lens or trying to repair it in place. Fortunately, there was a grant obtained and they replaced the prisms and bullseye panel, one bullseye panel, and it resumed operation 93. So two years went by of this restoration in place. What were the repercussions for this guy's actions? I don't know. That's the end of that story. He needs to pay.

40:32 14 year old. He needs to pay. The gun better be locked up. They're shooting rifles at lighthouses. I know. How much was it to replace this piece? It's like a million dollars. There was a grant. I think it was a private private cost, not publicly published. I'm pissed off. I'm pissed, royally pissed. I hope you learned. Somebody should have taught him a lesson. Well, they kept it on display. They could throw him out the top of the lighthouse with a parachute. Boy. So we're not there yet. The bargain 93 was that repair 98. There was a so the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum was incorporated as a separate entity away from the junior service league.

41:17 They grew it into what it was. So there's a new visitor center that was added in 2000, which is really new in lighthouse history. It's awesome. It accommodates large crowds that come to the lighthouse and climate. The lighthouse itself. The tower was awarded a St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum in 2002 under the provisions of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. So it's all kind of incorporating in the 2000s. But the reason that I say all that and I include it today is when you see that awesome website, when you see it's a Smithsonian affiliate, when you talk to the people who actually answer emails, which is super nice. Thanks, Emma. It's really great. And it's like, you know, it's a 15,000 people live here.

42:01 It's not a huge city. And people, I bet you most people who go visit as tourists at least once go see this lighthouse. Yeah, so I don't have those numbers, but it's a really as far as we're concerned with talking about lighthouse history, but also one of our branches is tourism of lighthouses. This is this looks awesome. I'd love to go. You know, looking at this picture, I'm thinking this may have used body islands design plans as these features because of the little entrance house at the bottom. Yeah, well, Cape Hatteras is on a big platform down here. Yeah, a red platform. And it doesn't have that little house connected. But but both Kuretuk and body do.

42:42 And these are I think originally these are like fuel storage, these structures. And then they added the they enclosed it here. If you look at some of our other of our older pictures, maybe it was always connected. I can't see the backside of that right image. I think it was a plan to have it connected. Before we continue, I'm going to take a second to go back to those wine bottles. Oh, yeah. So I got to tell you, $25 is the listed price. I don't remember what I've paid for it, where I have found it, because I never ordered it from their website. But St. Sebastian winery. So it's it's in St. Augustine. They've got a rooftop bar for they've got like sandwiches and hors d'oeuvres. They have live music up there. They've got several wines. This is what's actually in the bottle is a wine they make called Vintner's Red, which is I think, like $15.

43:29 So the very tasty you can get it in this. It is really good. We've had it, especially our lighthouse cocktail episode, the cocktail hour. We tried this in a drink that I made up. But it's a sweet red. It's really drinkable. This is not sponsored. I wish it was. But if you want to give somebody who's in the lighthouse as a gift, this is a cool bottle. It's attainable. Twenty five bucks. I mean, the Vintner's Red is cheaper. So the the glass costs you something right. But right on the on the bottle and it's not even on the website, it says a portion of the proceeds are donated to the first light maritime society who is dedicated to discovering, preserving, presenting and keeping alive the story of our nation's oldest port, St. Augustine Lighthouse.

44:16 And it's got a really cool image on it. Even if you don't like wine, I am not a wine person and I enjoyed it. And also you can just keep it like it's just it's a very neat little. It's a conversation starter. Yeah. So we've got one unopened and one empty that we still have. So their website's cool. I got the idea or I got the idea from someone else to cut a little hole in the side and make it into make them into lamps. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. Either fill them with like fairy lights or run a cord through the top and put a lampshade on top. Yeah. That'd be cool. We wanted to get crazy. Just on Google, you can see the top things to do in this is a really cool time to visit our farm.

45:00 This is a national monument slash Fort. I want to go there. The castles, Castillo, San Marcos. I shouldn't try the litner museum. So this is I believe this is the one it was. It's a university today. It's also at one point it was a hotel, like a grand hotel. So if you look at like aerial photos, it's really cool. Pirate Treasure Museum, Archeological. Pirate and Treasure Museum. We missed out on getting to go to a pirate museum when we traveled. Which one? It was we were going to go to it on our way out to Ocracoke and it said permanently closed.

45:41 Oh man, I forgot about that. It was the day of that I was like we can we can we can make time. It was like Blackbeard's. Right. Yeah. Right next to the ferry and oh, wasn't it? Ocracoke. It was on Ocracoke. It was on Ocracoke. Yeah. But St. Augustine, the lighthouse and maritime museums up there in the top six things to do. Actually, I think it's listed as number one. Just this image is from Google. There's a distillery. You know, cathedral distillery. But I think it's Anastasia State Park is the island where it's on the island where the lighthouse is. So it's supposed to be beautiful. So this is a video that we're going to watch now. OK. I don't know how we're going to handle the audio in the episode, so we can add it or as the nation's oldest city, it only makes sense that St. Augustine would also have some of the country's oldest ghost stories.

46:32 One of the most haunted spots is said to be the historic lighthouse. Mr. Jackson Porter, Aaron Farrar, visited the nearly 150 year old landmark and he talked with people who work there every day dealing with the paranormal. Two hundred nineteen steps all the way up to this observation deck of the lighthouse. We're about 140 feet in the air, but it's what's happened for years below us that really adds to the spooky season. Guests wander around these hallowed halls of the St. Augustine Lighthouse, now 148 years old. Sammy Washburn, who gives dark of the moon tours year round, says there are other visitors among them. Ghosts.

47:12 Washburn says she's witnessed some of that paranormal activity. They'll open and close windows when they aren't supposed to be open or closed. That's a typical act of this shadowy figure who Washburn says is one of the more popular ghosts. It might be a former lighthouse keeper who also picks up and drops this bucket. Bobby Dye with the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum believes those experiences can catch people off guard. There's a level of shock any time they experience, you know, something paranormal here on the grounds. Washburn has been giving tours here for six years, and sometimes things just get really creepy. Like the time she was locked inside the lighthouse.

47:54 It was definitely one of those like jaw dropping. I can't believe this is happening. How do we get out? Thankfully, I had a fellow staff member with me who was willing to climb out of a side window and unlock the door. Things change when these guests have those paranormal encounters. People sometimes say they're struggling to climb to the top of the lighthouse, and then all of a sudden they'll feel like a hand on their back kind of guiding them up to the top of the lighthouse. Washburn credits that to this ghost, Maria Andrew, who is dressed in white and is one of the only ghosts she says appears in full body apparition. Maria was the wife of a keeper of the old lighthouse who fell to his death.

48:35 Then there's Peter Rasmussen, one of Washburn's favorite ghosts. He was the longest serving lighthouse keeper, 23 years on the job in the early 1900s. Washburn says he sends a cherry tobacco scent throughout the entire lighthouse, especially when another guest insults him. Washburn says that's happened before. He called Peter stupid. And as we were exiting the room that we were in, he stopped right in the doorway. And I went back to check on him and I got to the other side of the doorway. And there was just this whiff of cherry tobacco, like someone had walked through the doorway in between us. So I think that was Peter just letting this guy know, hey, I've got my eye on you.

49:16 Don't insult me again. The reactions of these mysterious encounters vary, but those who underestimate them, Washburn says, are the best. Those are kind of my favorites because they're usually the ones who are like, I'll be fine. Ghosts could talk to me, ghosts could touch me, I'd be good. But then they actually have something happen and they're like, all right, I'm done, I'm out. So what would you do? Reporting in St. Augustine, I'm Aaron for our channel four, The Local Station. Hello. Kind of neat. For people not watching the video, they keep showing this picture of a black form hanging over the railing, staring down at whoever is taking the picture.

49:56 And I think I've heard of that. Was it like ghost hunters or whatever, ghost busters or something? I've heard the people are that go and film and stuff, ghost hunters or something. They talk about that. Yeah, like you can't see them and then you take a picture and there's a flash. I hate that. It gives me goosebumps. She was also, I didn't notice until this time when I watched it, her shirt, I pointed at when we were watching. It has the lighthouse, like the lantern room and then a little ghost peeking out from around the side in the graphic. Thank you. So cool. So that's the main body of our research today. And then I wanted to once again thank the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum for their permission to check out the website.

50:40 Let's see what else I got on here. That's it. So St. Augustine, Florida. That's a good one. They've been on the list for a long time. Lots of history. It's so old. Well, and I've condensed some things. I'm sure there's more. There's a lot that I didn't include that, you know, kind of general things that we've covered at other lighthouses. Just covering things that are unique about this one, there's still quite a bit of quite a bit of stories to tell. So it'd be a fun place to go visit because there's so much other history. Like the lighthouse can be a part of your trip. Yeah. Yeah. Jacksonville, Orlando, I'm pretty sure. I think it's like an hour and a half. I don't know.

51:21 I could spend probably a week there and you could probably spend a weekend there or a day and you'd have a good time. So I'm caught between wanting to do a trip next year where we visit a bunch of lighthouses like Cape Cod where they make it really easy or visiting someplace like this that has a ton of history and other stuff to go look at. Yeah. Well, it's a good problem. We've got good contacts in a couple of locations. Yeah, that's true. Mostly the Bahamas is one that is always tempting to go see there. So yeah, thank you, everybody. I wanted to point out our LinkedIn and our YouTube are the two main things that I help manage and both those have been growing a lot lately. Yeah. We have a lot of new records every month now.

52:02 Yes, we've been growing. I love it so much. And please leave us a review. We only have two right now, but you can go to our website and you can also leave one through Apple or through Spotify. But it's fun if you leave comments or something in the description about what you think about our podcast. You can go to the lighthouselowdown.com to leave a review. The two people that have left a review, it's fun. They're funny and fun to read. We also have our voicemail still running, right? Yes. If anyone wants to call us about anything, you go ahead. Leave us voicemails. It's so much fun. It's just a little button in the corner of our website that floats around as you navigate through the website.

52:46 It's just a little microphone. So the lighthouselowdown.com. The lighthouselowdown.com. We sound like an 800 day commercial. So well, thank you everyone for joining us. I'm going to close it out. Really? What do I say? We'll see you next time. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed listening and we'll catch you next time on the Lighthouse Lowdown.