Episode 53 - Absecon Lighthouse

0:00 Hello, I'm Vince Wait, what? How does it go? I say hi everyone. I think yeah Hi, everyone. I'm Vince and I'm Emily and you're listening to the lighthouse lowdown Very good. Very good. Welcome to another episode. Our host today is wearing glasses and he looks really cute Biased You made the emoji face. That's like which one like slightly blushing smiley with glasses, of course I Just recalled at this very moment that I don't have a history buoy Oh, you're pulling to me. There's so much history involved in this here episode that we can just count you'll see so I'm kind of gonna tell two stories at once and Some of it is a little choppy and I've got to read a bit today. So Don't be afraid to interrupt me and ask questions and bring it back to conversation. Okay Okay, first off. Have you heard of Atlantic City? Do you know what that is where that is? Why I want to say, Georgia It's not in Georgia So wild guess out there. The answer is no. Okay, New Jersey Atlantic City is in New Jersey and it's an interesting city because To my knowledge. There's nowhere else like it other than Las Vegas as far as where you can gamble

1:33 There are casinos and resorts and hotels I think it's in friends somewhere. Oh really? So it's kind of focused what obviously we're gonna talk about it I'm stepping on my own material. Okay, but it's kind of focused on the Northeast New York folks and I think Philadelphia is nearby. I have to look man. I might have to eat those words, but New Jersey highly populated area I have not spent any time in that area. So I don't know personally, but I found it fascinating And at the very end of the episode you're gonna see why I was fascinated with abscond lighthouse Did you look up that pronunciation? Yes Absa Khan I've heard so I watched YouTube videos and people say abscond. So I'm gonna say abscond. Yeah videos are usually pretty like I watched um, like a tribe video Tr fashioned of abscond sorry, we go back to talk about Hollywood Not eel Um and I've watched you how compared it is to Hatteras.

2:56 Yeah, that's nice. I was gonna ask. This is the second tallest one. Ponce de Leon, which is in Florida. It's near, well, it's halfway between Orlando and St. Augustine. So Atlantic City is the story I'm gonna kind of tell about the history of Atlantic City. And then we're also gonna talk about Epsican Lighthouse, kind of mixed in. Most of my sources today are half of Lighthouse Friends talking about Epsican and half of a document talking about the history of Atlantic City. Okay. My interest in this lighthouse is the combination of the two because it's a very weird place to have a lighthouse. Oh, I like that. So Atlantic City is a landmass. At present day, the landmass is Epsican Island.

3:37 Oh, okay. The city is the city. So it's detached. Yeah, early colonial settlers in Jersey, South Jersey, largely ignored the island because it could only be reached by boat separate from the land. While the exact date of the first permanent settlement has never been determined, it's said that a man named Jeremiah Leeds was the first to build and occupy a year round residence on the island. He built his house in 1783. Wow, he just moved right over there. Yeah, he's like, oh look, free land. I like to be alone. I did learn that there were other names for Epsican Island from the natives that had lived there before. Oh yeah, I always love to hear those. I think they had, I don't know them. Big eyebrows, I want you to pronounce them.

4:19 You try. He tried to put me in that trap. So I can't, I don't need to write them down. But of course, like most of North America was occupied by Native Americans and then they had moved or had been forced away by the time settlers were in the area. So in 1820, Dr. Jonathan Pitney is another important figure. He arrived on Epsican Island seated atop a horse laden with saddlebags full of medical supplies and personal belongings. He was a doctor? Yes. He had just finished his first two years of employment at a hospital in Staten Island, very renowned developed area at the time for 1820.

4:59 And following his graduation, he did medical school. So medical school in New York City, Staten Island for a couple of years. And then he was looking for a place to be his own practice. Yeah, start his own thing. So there was talk and I think he largely made up this talk that going to the sea, putting yourself in nature is good for you. Going to the coast, especially from the city, like New York crowded areas. So touting the health benefits of fresh air and saltwater, he encouraged his friends and patients, he built his own little group. To come where he was? To vacation to Atlantic City. So there's lots of weirdness going on with Atlantic City developing, but that was kind of the original push was, hey, come out here, it's good for you.

5:43 Get away from the city. Yeah, it's not a bad reason to have people come to your practice. And it's gonna come up again, but being an island without a developed way of getting to the island is a difficult thing eventually to build a lighthouse as well. There's no docks, beaches are hard to land on with materials, let alone have people come out there. So he wanted to do a couple things to help build up Atlantic City. One was a railroad and two was a lighthouse. Wait, he had the idea for a lighthouse? Wow. He petitioned the government in 1830, so he'd only been there a little bit, for a lighthouse on Ipsicon Island. 1837, Congress approved $5,000 to check it out.

6:25 Which I don't understand, $5,000 in those times is a lot of money. Is it insane? Why is that to just check it out? You'll see. So at that time it was the Army Corps of Engineers. So Commander Vallette, I think it's his name, he came to the island and he looked around, he did a survey, he looked it all. There was a bunch of records that Pitney had put together to pitch his case. And his conclusion was that a lighthouse was not justified because Ipsicon Inlet had a bar across its mouth and mariners could avoid the shoals in the area by just staying offshore. The point was, well you can't have a dock here, so just stay away. Clearly there's a landmass that keeps people away.

7:08 Based on his report, construction of a lighthouse, which may have saved some of 64 ships that were lost off the inlet between 1847 and 1856. So it was really necessary. Which is 64 ships in nine years. That's a ton. You'd think they would have definitely done something by that point. They canceled the project at that time. Shameful. So I don't know if there's more to it, money or personal, whatever. Lucy the Elephant. So Lucy the Elephant. Oh, unless you're gonna talk about it later then. I'm not. I actually left it out and it's kind of a big deal, so it's a good question. For everyone not watching, he just pulled up a map of Atlantic City. There's a big bubble that just says Lucy the Elephant.

7:50 We're gonna go, I'm gonna pull up a Google page of Google Maps and actually take us over there. We're gonna start with no land here. It's no ocean. Just doxed ourselves, that's fine. No one cares about us. Hey, we're going up there soon. No one cares about us. Oh, this is close to Cape Cod? Hold on, give me a second. Oh. Finding my bearings. Okay, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, wow. Atlantic City. The city over here is Philadelphia. Thank goodness I was correct. And as we're gonna talk about, there was a railway that was developed between a town outside of Philly, think Camden and Atlantic City to kind of bring it to life.

8:30 But I wanted to talk about Atlantic City first. So Lucy the Elephant, as you asked, is a landmark that is one of the things to see in Atlantic City. Do AC is the current city slogan. It's a house slash the largest elephant ever built. Oh my gosh. And you can go and get a tour of it. At some, I don't remember the history of who built it. I didn't focus on it, obviously, for this episode. But at some point, someone built this, Lucy inside. Wow. They built it as a real estate development. So someone built it as an art project. There's two famous woodworkers. I think there were a couple that built this and lived in it. And then someone after them, I believe, sorry if I'm totally freelancing this, bought it and used it to develop the real estate in the area.

9:18 So beach houses and whatever. You can go to the top of this thing, that- Little overhang. I forget what it's called, this thing on top. Gondola. Yeah, you can go up there. Pretty cool. So you can go up there and you can look around and they actually used to like pick out plots of land from up there. It's actually pretty nice on the inside. I loved their, they had pointy top doors on the inside. The eyeball windows. Oh, I also saw there was a window booty hole. Is there really? I've got to see that. Let's go. Oh yeah. Square too. Classy. Tail off to the side. Like, yeah. So a bit of a sidetrack, but Lucy the elephant is significant. I couldn't skip it. Yeah, fun. But I also don't really know a ton about it. It's fun how there's just some really strange things you could find in cities.

10:02 And like their water tower had a picture of it. So obviously it's like a focal point for the city. It's kind of funny. Yeah, you look up what to do in Atlantic city and you'll see golf. I just saw golf course. You don't see golf, although there is golf nearby. Thank goodness. You'll see beach going. One of the things that is unique about Atlantic city is the beaches are local and free. Free to attend, which is really cool. Yeah. Casinos, hotels, slash resorts. Obviously you can eat, you can shop. It's a big come visit place. Through history, it's been through a couple of different developments. It was like a stop for a lot of shows that went to Broadway. So you could come out. Like part of their climbing to popularity or something.

10:44 During World War II, it was a training camp for the army. I think they like trained and kept people ready to go out of here. But lighthouse, that's what we're here, is up here. So it's definitely in the city. It's in a central part and it's been there a long time. I'm gonna talk about all this stuff. But at one point, the lighthouse was almost underwater. Oh no. It's crazy, given what is there developed now. Yeah. So we're gonna talk about how they did that. Yeah, tell me all about it. I would say one thing I saw, if you wanna go visit, they recommended don't bring a car. Parking is expensive and the whole island is kind of occupied. I mean, it depends on your standard. For me, I'd be crazy because I'm from Kansas where parking is free and available.

11:28 Yeah, everywhere. Everywhere. So in March of, I'm going chronologically. So you'll see some jumping. That's how I do it. March of 1854, the 18 voters of the city elected their first mayor. His name was Chalky S. Leeds. Chalky? Chalky, C-H-A-L-K-E-Y. His first name was Chalky. Chalky. His father was the Leeds man who built his house there, the first one supposedly, in 1783. Jeremiah. Oh, okay. That's more normal. Chalky was a man of the island, which I think was rare at the time.

12:11 Also in 1854, the first public train left Camden, which we said is up near Philadelphia, for Atlantic City, arriving two and a half hours later. I think it's a lot faster now. Yeah, I bet so. But apparently that's the way to go. It's really cheap and it's the way to get in. So, but that really opened availability to get to the island for people and everything started taking off. So still intent on developing the land further, Mr. Pitney, Dr. Pitney, he was a huge advocate for the railway that we just talked about. He wrote a bunch of letters to Congress, petitions. He had tabling, he was going door to door. Surprised he wasn't the mayor.

12:52 It was like a tight knit community because it was so small. And people really enjoyed in this era, the seclusion that they had. So there was a fight between, well, we need money, we need people to visit, but also look how great this is with no one else. So that all would change. Finally, 1854, he was able to secure 35,000 for Epsiocan Lighthouse to serve the area. He is known for those reasons as the father of Atlantic City. Oh my gosh, he did it. Dr. Pitney. Here's the earliest picture I could find. We're a single strap dude. I really wanna visit this era in time. It just looks cool. Like all this was new. These are all new buildings, probably a church.

13:34 Just be cool. See a new development. Parcel of land near the end that was acquired for $520. Work started in 1855. The work was overseen again by the Army's Engineering Corps. Three men, Major Meade, excuse me, Lieutenant Meade, Major Bach, B-A-C-H-E, and Lieutenant Colonel Reynolds. While Meade was supervising the construction, he complained, quote, I am not aware on what data the amount appropriated for this work was based. There is no doubt, however, that it was entirely inadequate for a work of the magnitude now being erected. The place, though within 40 miles of Philadelphia, is entirely without resources.

14:18 There are no wharves or conveniences of any kind or landing materials, for landing materials, or for handling them after landing. Hence, it resulted from a reliable calculation that transportation on the railroad was the most economical route, notwithstanding its excess over ordinary water transport. So he's saying, typically, we build lighthouses with boats. We deliver all the materials on a nice dock and wharf where we buy all the hardware. Right next to where we're trying to go. There's rigging and cranes and steam engines, at least at the time. And he's like, we don't have any of that. So how are we supposed to build this? It gets worse. Oh. While excavating an eight foot deep trench for the tower's masonry foundation, water from the adjoining marshes would flood in, requiring the purchase of a steam engine powered pump capable of moving 12,000 gallons per hour.

15:11 That's a lot of water. Meade requested an additional, I love the precision, $17,436.62 to complete the lighthouse. And this amount was provided in August of 1856. Wow, he really quoted it specifically. Yeah, I'm trying to read this accurately. No rounding up. Isn't that weird? First off, to get a quote down to the pennies. Right. But also, now we see why, I think, the first gentleman who visited was like, you don't really need a lighthouse here. Yeah. There's nothing here. Yeah, you don't even have the materials to bring in shipping materials and stuff. But you need a lighthouse to do that well when you have 60 something ships sink in nine years.

15:54 I suppose. So I wanted to show you the three lighthouses that are the tallest in the United States, according to one article that I had read. Wouldn't you argue that the worst, the terrible lighthouse that we recently covered of Statue of Liberty is taller? Yeah, but it's not a lighthouse. Anymore or it was? It's not considered because it's, that's like the... Faro de... Faro's Alexandria. Oh, yeah. I think I could be wrong. You said that right, I think. I think that's right. We have our own podcast. We can do whatever we want. I said that right. No one here is objecting.

16:36 Although that one would be considered because it's even taller than Statue of Liberty. So it's in this no longer here, it doesn't count. You can't really, I'm looking at the screen. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see that the three that we're talking about, Cape Hatteras, Ponce de Leon, which I said again is in Florida. Hold on. Epsiq and I went. Did you do this editing? I did not do this. Okay. This is from an article. I was like, oh my gosh, what is happening? Why? Did I do good? We'll just say I did it then. I did it. And you'll see the last slide is credits to other websites and articles. Oh, nice. Your results may vary. You can actually... Epsiqon?

17:16 Epsiqon. Epsiqon? Oh, Epsiqon is what I would have said. Epsiqon is what it actually is. It needs some help. It does. Is that a current photo or something? It's a more current photo. Okay. So yeah, continue. And there's an article that says that that, we're gonna cover it. That day mark is yellow, black, yellow. No. Looks awfully white, black, white to me. It looks supremely white, black, maybe cream, but definitely white up top. But it had a bunch of cool day marks that we're gonna talk about. Oh, epsiqled. Very exciting. Okay. The top there, we'll see better photos later, but it's actually a caged in platform below what I would say is the lantern room.

17:59 Okay. And that is where you can climb to. There's actually a live camera up there all the time, just so you can check in. I like when they do that. I would say it doesn't look like the best view because of the bars, but it'd still be cool to go. It'd be cool to go there, for sure. They have a whole museum and everything. It was the first lighthouse built under the supervision of the new lighthouse board. Oh, hey. Those gentlemen. And it was also the first of three similar towers that would be constructed in New Jersey in the next few years. It's a brick tower. It stands 171 feet tall. It was made of 598,634 bricks, and it contains a spiral staircase with 228 steps.

18:40 The Fresnel lens. Gosh. Oh, it just never ends. Fresnel, Fresnel lens, Fresnel was manufactured in 1854. It was a custom order, first order. Love that. From a company called Souter and CIE of Paris. Someone can tell me how to pronounce that. It was installed and lit for the first time in 1857. So three years from the order to lighting, which is cool. Okay. The lighthouse board proudly wrote, quote. Probably. Proudly. Oh. They probably wrote this, quote. I think this was them. It is. Okay.

19:24 It is a fact worthy of remark that on this part of the coast hitherto frequent and appalling shipwrecks. Gosh. Since the exhibition of this light, a period of about 10 months, there have been no wrecks in this vicinity. Okay, hey. So I can't speak today, but that's what they said. They're like, look at this. They stuttered through the whole thing too. Yeah, they, actually that's how they would have said it. Built in. My gosh. Atlantic city again, the pox. You almost made me choke on my coffee. The tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips.

20:08 Atlantic city's proximity to major population centers coupled with convenient, inexpensive train access allowed thousands to flee hot cities and enjoy summer pleasures at a cool seashore. The city grew rapidly and offered lodging, dining, entertainment, and amusement for all ages, tastes, and incomes. Attractions such as the boardwalk, which is really cool. I always loved boardwalks. The boardwalk, it's huge. Amusement piers, like they have like a kids, basically a Navy pier just for like full of circus type of stuff. That there's couples of those, couple of those. Floor shows and beauty pageants drew throngs of visitors, including many famous people throughout the years with these masses of visitors, the lighthouse also became a popular attraction.

20:52 So it was one of the first to boom in visitation because it was something you would do when you're already there. And as we saw, it's right in the middle of the city. Two dwellings were built for the lighthouse. One for the headkeeper, one for the two assistants. The headkeeper was actually connected to the lighthouse by a 30 foot passageway that was enclosed. And the second dwelling stood the opposite side of the tower, but they had to walk outside because they're lowly assistants. The dwellings, I cut this down. The dwellings were remodeled several times to make space for assistants, mostly in their families. Several times, five or six times. They had more than one assistant level? Yes.

21:33 And we'll get to why. Here's an image of the lighthouse in 1900. The Library of Congress had this photo. I thought that was interesting. Nice, those houses are so neat. Aren't they cool? I love the construction. Love that architecture. It's hard to imagine today because of where the lighthouse sits, but for several years, it was threatened by erosion in the water. So it was originally 1300 feet from the water. In 1864, the sea was causing considerable apprehension. Taking of regular measurements was instituted to track the changing of the shoreline. So that was just 10 years later. 10 years after that, ordinarily, the high tides were reaching the lighthouse lot and extreme tides were covering a large portion of the reservation, which was not good.

22:20 You're gonna lose it. So they built seven jetties, which are portions of riprap on land, and they covered the distance between the low and the high tides, and over time, that captured the sand to help build up the shore, and that's still what's there today. Okay, wow. Still serving that. So they added one long one at the very end in 1878. These works proved so effective that in 1884, 100 square feet of the lighthouse lot was used to build a life-saving station. Nice. So not only was it there, but they were really betting on it. So that was the time when it was almost underwater? Okay. The 1850s to 1870s. So 20 years of building the land back up, and then 10 more years after that, they built the life-saving station.

23:04 They had proved it. Yeah, awesome. And still there's hotels and casinos on it now. It's crazy. Over its life, there was only six headkeepers. The fourth, I'm gonna tell you a story about Abraham G. Wolfe. Wolfe is a good last name. Yeah, he could coach a Formula One team. Coach. He made the following station, oh my God. Made the following entry in the station's log book, 952 p.m., August 30th of 1886, while he was standing watch on the tower. Oh. Quote, felt a shock of earthquake while top of the tower. Oh no. Pipes in the closet rattled as if a gale wind were blowing. The tower swayed so I could hardly keep my footing.

23:45 The wind was north, northwest, very light, and it was cloudy and smoky both. Motion north to south, duration about one minute. I was out on the gallery at the time, came in and looked at the clock, had difficulty in doing so, could not have left if I had wished to do so. And I think I did at the time. I think I wanted to get out of there. No kidding. He called down to his wife using a telephone of his own making. Don't know anymore about that. Okay. Pretty dope though. Connected the, dope, connected the tower's watch room with the dwelling's kitchen. He asked his wife, did you feel that? She said no, and told him that he must have experienced vertigo.

24:27 Oh no. When an assistant keeper came to relieve him at 10 p.m., Wolf showed him what he had written in the log book. Not having felt the quake, the assistant suggested to Wolf that he, such a record might place his sanity in question. And perhaps he should expunge it. I mean, if nobody else felt it, although he's pretty high up there, so naturally he's gonna feel it. But it must not have been a big earthquake if there really was something. He was certain that he had felt something. Maybe he was being a little bit dramatic. He couldn't find anybody in the station or even people living nearby to confirm his story. But when a paper from the big city of Philadelphia arrived the next morning with an account of the earthquake, Keeper Wolf's story was substantiated and his entry remained in the log book.

25:14 He's, I'm leaving this in there. I'm right, dang it. He's like, this is written into history. One man was right. Besides caring for the light and the property at the station, the keepers of the lighthouse also looked after the throngs of visitors. Whoa. Might be having a stroke. That was a strong one. I worked out pretty hard. Yeah, if you're just not getting a lot of blood to your brain. Besides caring for the light and the property at the station, the keepers of Epsikan Lighthouse also looked after the throngs of visitors who came for tours. Climbing the tower was popular with the crowds, as were the ornamental plantings on the grounds. What does that mean? I looked into that.

25:54 Apparently there was vast gardens that had been built. Well, in this picture you have a picture of a nice hedge. Like a bunch of flowers as well as vegetable gardens. Oh, that would be like a botanical garden. And then the land built up. So it was very pretty. So I guess that will go away and then it'll come back. Oh. So, but they got an ump... An early jump on spring, thanks to the... I don't get it. I just need to take a minute. I just need to take a minute. You're just staring. It's too much staring at a screen. The tongue, the teeth, the eyes and the lips. Tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips. Tip of the tongue, the teeth and the lips.

26:36 Have you seen Anchorman? No, I saw the end. Oh, the very opening scene has Will Ferrell preparing to be on air. Okay. He does this. He does this. That, yeah, that I saw in Just Go With It, Adam Sandler. Oh yeah, yeah. The gardens got an early jump on spring, thanks to the station's greenhouse. So they start things in the greenhouse, take it to the garden. It was a whole effort. Yeah. The lighthouse service questioned why three keepers were needed. Oh, oh, I thought they were gonna question why there was like, why do you have all this frou-frou garden stuff? Like, why do you need three keepers? Because the station never had a revolving lens, or also it never had a fog signal, which I think is kind of weird.

27:19 That is strange. Just didn't have one. Maybe they didn't have a lot of fog. Maybe not, on the Atlantic coast, I don't know. Yeah, that would be weird. So an inspector visited in 1912 to check this out. And when he got back, they asked him if it'd be wise to reduce the public visiting hours and cut one keeper. Oh no. Because the keepers were mostly busy with the guests. The instructor adamantly responded no, admitting that while giving tours could be a nuisance, it also served as good public relations for the service. Yeah. Over 10,000 people a year were visiting in the visitor's log. They were signing it, which is cool. Awesome that they have a record. I love that. The lighthouse service, however, did order the greenhouse removed.

27:59 Oh. It's frivolous, I guess. It's somebody's hobby. The country's most visited lighthouse lost its impressive gardens. Oh no. We're talking 1900. This is happening. That's a disaster. So 1922, regardless of the gardens, the lighthouse service noted that Epsikian Lighthouse was visited by the public more than any other lighthouse in the United States. My gosh. So. I mean, it's right in the middle of everything anyway. I found this while I was doing the research, that quote, and I thought it was really interesting, especially we recently talked about lighthouse tourism. We kind of always do, right? Visit the lighthouse. It's cool. But this one had one of the first eras for lighthouse tourism being popular.

28:41 It was the golden age, we'll say 1920. History makes lots of changes through the 30s and 40s. Yes. And it had another golden age, I will say we'll get back to it in the early 2000s, which I think is awesome, which is kind of the golden, most recent golden age for all lighthouse tourism is these renovations we keep hearing about in the 90s. Big ones. From the 1880s to 1940s, the city was staying busy. In the 1920s, it was considered a premier tryout town for theatrical productions headed to Broadway and beyond. Beginning in the 1930s, the dirties, is continuing for the next decades. Kentucky Avenue was renowned for its nightlife.

29:22 The club Harlem and other venues attracting the best talent and biggest stars from the world of jazz and then World War II. The city offered much more entertainment as it served as a training site for military recruits and recovery rehab center for wounded soldiers. They had built up so much housing and lodging that the government was like, so now we're in war. We could plant you guys here. It's on the coast, it's on the East Coast. Oh, that'd be nice. I mean, when you imagine where you could be placed if you were like all of a sudden like an amputee or something and they put you in like a beachy town where like there's lots of people. It would be so much better than. Coming home from World War II to a beach would be great.

30:04 Maybe not, I don't know. Maybe you'd wanna be home instead. At least you're home back in the States. Yeah, man, that is a tall lighthouse. Yeah, and over time. It's just so strange. It's just right in the middle of all of these houses. It's like in every direction. What? It's gonna get weirder. This is why, so you're gonna see the modernization of this urban area. The lighthouse stays. Yeah. She stays. So like that's why I first found this one because I looked for is there a lighthouse in Las Vegas, which is a ridiculous thing to look for. But there wasn't. Thank goodness there wasn't Margaritaville. It's now gone, sad. Parrot heads sad everywhere. Tragic. But this, you know, Vegas took me to Atlantic City, took me to Epsic and light, so.

30:45 Oh, just a side note. In this photo, you can tell that the quote unquote white parts of the lighthouse that we saw are darker than the white parts of the buildings that are next door. So was it yellow? I think it was yellow in this time. It's so, how did they, what would make them choose to make it yellow and not white when white was so much easier? We're gonna talk about it. Oh, okay. It needed to be differentiated. It was one of the reasons. What else is so tall with a black band? There's another lighthouse up north. What? There's another one down south, it's interesting. Okay, tell me all about it. And another one down south, it's interesting. We'll talk about in a different episode. Oh, oh my God. We're on an adventure, folks. I have to wait?

31:26 You know you only post once every two months. I have to wait. Yes, you'll love it. All right. Maybe I'll cover it first. Listen. It's kidding. As you said, as seek and light was Atlantic City's tallest structure for several decades, many decades, but by the dawn of the 20th century, nearby buildings and hotels were obscuring the lighthouse. Oh no. Mariners clamored for a new light. July 11th of 1933, so we're jumping back in time a little bit, forgive me. There was a new light exhibited atop a steel tower erected on the boardwalk near New Hampshire Avenue.

32:08 Epsicum Lighthouse was discontinued in the keeper, Nudd Hanson, K-N-U-D, who arrived at the station in 1896 as second assistant. It was made headkeeper in 1914, retired at the age of 66, though he did remain at the station as a caretaker for a period. Oh, nice. The two keepers' dwellings were demolished in the 1940s. The only Atlantic City agreement to adopt the lighthouse in 1946 saved it from being wrecked. Oh, Coast Guard wanted to take it down? Yep, because they had replaced it with another beacon. Now an early beacon, but. Yeah. That's how it goes history. The city managed the lighthouse until 1966 when they sold it to the state of New Jersey.

32:51 So that kind of sums up the end of it, but it doesn't go away because even though it's no longer the primary means for navigation, there's another light built near the coast, steel tower. It remains a structurally significant thing to see. So the day marks are still important. Yeah. And of course the local culture around it. It's shocking to me that the city would sell it to the state when it's been such a huge source of tourism and income and things. Yeah, I think Atlantic City, and we're gonna keep talking about how it's developed, they have other struggles, especially with the economy going up and down.

33:32 City, like Vegas can live on, but Atlantic City is smaller and it requires people to come out on trains. So it's not quite as grand. It's not we're flying in, spending all the money. So to keep people going, I think the city had to focus on itself. And maybe this is one of the things that was costly or potentially gonna be costly. So we're gonna talk for a second about the day marks. So the tower went up in plain brick. It did not receive its first coat of paint for 20 something years, 1871. The tower was painted white with a central 52 foot red band. Oh yeah. The day mark changed in 1897. Montauk point.

34:13 This is cool. The tower changed in 1897 to orange with a black band. Halloween. Yeah. To help mariners distinguish it from the red and white Barnegat, Barnegat? What's that? It's another lighthouse. Oh. Located several miles to the north. Okay. Chameleon like. The yellow, ah. The lighthouse changed its official color scheme just a short time later to yellow, black, yellow. As someone in authority found orange distasteful. Oh, good grief. After the lighthouse was deactivated and control passed to the city, the tower was painted white, blue, white. Oh, blue. The city's colors.

34:54 Oh, I really like that. Isn't that cool? If it's not official, then yeah, make it blue. The state then restored the tower to its earliest white, red, white day mark after it purchased the lighthouse. Okay. Quote, the tower now sports yellow, black, yellow. Day market had for the longest period of its active service. Okay. I wanna see it actually yellow. I don't see it as yellow. I see it as a really faded. Yeah, like. And that's where we're gonna go, unfortunately with the coverage is it's had hay days and it's been really quiet. And right now, when I'm looking at the images, it's really quiet. Yeah, really beat up. There was even, it's a shame I didn't write his name down.

35:35 There's a whole article on a gentleman who served as an honorary keeper into his 90s. Oh my. In like the 2000s, early 2000s, he passed away, I'm pretty sure. But he would be here every Friday. He would climb all the stairs to take tourists up. He was an old dude. He would dress in old fashioned lighthouse keeper, full suit, people loved him. He lost his wife and he's like, this is what I do now is I'm just the volunteer here. So it was his thing. But so people like him and then tourists coming and then tourists going have put the city and also I think the lighthouse is a good reflection through a bunch of ups and downs. Right now, I feel it's probably down because the most recent entry in the history of Atlantic City is shut down in March of 2020.

36:23 Yeah, I forgot about that. It was 2019 due to COVID. And as we know, the East Coast had a rough time with high population and COVID. So I don't know that it's come back financially. What are you supposed to do? Especially when most of the income for the city is probably tourism. Nobody's traveling. Even if like right now the economy is kind of rough and like people are feeling poor. So it's hard for cities like this to thrive when there's so much going on in people's lives financially. Let me tell you that story in the last 50 years. So 1950s air travel to vacation spots in Florida and the Caribbean became more widely available.

37:06 Atlantic City's popularity as a resort destination began to decline. By the 1960s, the city was beset with the economic and social problems common to many urban centers at the time. With an economy entirely dependent on tourists who are now shunning the decaying resort, the city reached a low point. All the meanwhile, the lighthouse in 1954 was lit to honor Atlantic City's centennial. And again in 1963 to celebrate the state's tercentenary. What is that? The 300 years. Oh okay, wow I've never heard of that before. 1976, time goes on. Something called the Atlantic City Gamble, which I think is a bill or a proposal, was launched when New Jersey's voted to approve that legalizing gambling in the city of Atlantic City was okay.

37:53 Oh I forgot that gambling would have been illegal. Through all of history. Through all of history here until 1976. But nowhere else in the state is it allowable. So if you wanna gamble, go to Atlantic City. And so in the 80s they saw a revitalization. Many critics questioned this back and forth, urban development. But the first casino was called Resorts International, opened in 1978, two years after the bill. I'm sorry, that could have been a lot cooler of a name. Resorts International, that's the dumbest name ever. It's like prestige worldwide. What, like it's the first gamble, like it's a casino. Resorts International. It kinda sounds cool. No, it sounds bland.

38:35 Well, no one could have predicted the rapid growth of the gaming industry in Atlantic City. Oh yeah. Or the tremendous impact it would have on the city, region, and state. So once again, money comes, things go well. Lighthouse as well. By 1988, 10 years later, a dozen casinos were open. And the annual visitors had grown from 700,000 in 1978, the year of the bill, or the year of the opening, to over 33 million. Oh my gosh. Wait, what decade is this? 70s, yeah, 78 to 88. Okay. 700,000 to 33 million a year. Geez, that's wild. Because gambling is cool and fun and no risk.

39:16 Gambling is fun. So by the year 2000, which, and now we're jumping to 80s to 2000, the city's tax base had skyrocketed to more than $6.7 billion, up from $316 million, when the bill was signed in 76. So it worked. The positive impact on Atlanta City residents could be seen in revitalized neighborhoods, new housing projects, and public service facilities, and an economic, social, and cultural program. So everything was busting with the new money. It was good for the residents, apparently. An effort aided by the IPPA, the Inlet Public Slash Private Association, was launched in 1997 to rebuild the Headkeepers' Dwelling as it appeared after 1903, restore the lighthouse and the lands, and reopen the station to the public once again.

40:09 It had closed. Oh, I didn't know that. So this is the money that's finally coming back. More tourism. $2.75 million were raised in 97. Geez. And the effort was progressing nicely until early morning July 6th of 1998, when a police officer on patrol noticed the nearly complete dwelling was on fire. No. The fire department responded quickly, but the dwelling was a complete loss. The lighthouse itself escaped without damage and was opened in the following April. Who did it? Doesn't seem like nature. So. I'm pissed off. It was July. No, there's no radiant heat ignition going on here in July.

40:51 This is like when somebody. This is a fallen power line. This is like when that kid shot at the Fronelands at St. Augustine. Yup, with a rifle. He's like. An insurance policy. Woo hoo. Oh, hey. Allowed the work to, of rebuilding in the dwelling to begin again in the fall of 2000. The complete station was opened to the public October of 2001. And once again, Ebsiegel Lighthouse, New Jersey's tallest, is a beacon for tourists coming to enjoy the fresh air and salt water and now the gambling offered by Atlantic City. The long anticipated second wave of development is now underway. This is an old quote talking about the city. The Borgata, the first new casino to be built here since 1990 opened in 2003.

41:37 So once again, resurgence in 2000 with lighthouse, with casinos, let's go. The prospect of increased competition for the gaming market as well as success of Atlantic City's convention center, also new, have been catalysts for the development of other projects. Several casinos have embarked on major expansions of their hotel and retail spaces. An enormous new retail and entertainment complex was built in the center of the city. That's been renamed a couple of times. In recent years, more than $1.8 billion in new investments were planned and underway. Most of the new projects are devoted to broadening the appeal of the city beyond gambling. Back to lighthouses, let's go. Offering visitors a wide range of attractions is considered key to a successful future.

42:19 Yeah, for sure. And there's a timeline of Atlantic City. And like I said, March 16th of 2020, the last entry timeline when this was written before 2020 was Atlantic City is shut down due to COVID-19 pandemic. So I have a feeling looking at photos and looking at Google Maps, there's some huge casinos that were just built that are closed or they're empty or the streets aren't clean or people, the views are no crowds. So I wanna go to Atlantic City and I got a couple of pictures. We can single-handedly fix their economy. We can bring it back. Oh, this looks nice.

43:00 But I did- This is not yellow. You can't convince me. It's not yellow in this image. There's like a tint of yellow around the gallery. Maybe it was yellow, I don't know. But perhaps it's faded. You can see there's spots with no paint at all. So once again, it needs restored. Lighthouses have a tough life. They're right on the water. The ocean water especially, it's difficult. But this, all housing developments in the background, some type of hotels it looks like right here. I think that's a casino hotel right on the edge. I looked at all of these, spent way too long on Google just looking at this. But here's a view out to the ocean.

43:40 Oh, so the first order lens is still in there. It is. Stationary first order lens is still there. Still lit? I don't know if it's lit. No one mentioned it. It sounded earlier like they light it periodically for special occasions. I think that's it. But then why would they leave? A Fresnel lens needs to go in a museum if it's just sitting up there. It is a museum in a way. I mean, people still visit. I thought that you only got to climb up to the gallery and not. You can't go to see the lens. Yeah. There's actually, I saw a video, I spent way too long researching, of a guy going up on a tour, climbing and looking out here. There's a staircase that goes up to the inside, it goes up to the thing. It says, if you cross this alarm, it will sound.

44:21 Oh. It's like, people have tried. Yeah, right. I have no backup for this. But I think if the other beacon, which is on the boardwalk, screen right in this image, maybe half a mile, if that were to fail, this one's a backup. Okay. It still has an electric beacon installed in the Fresnel lens. Fresnel wall alarm. Oh, also look at that nice little mural on the trash dumpster. Oh. Or bathroom, whatever that is. Yeah, a little bit of the ocean. I didn't mean to insult that little tiny building. Dumpster. There are, there's some beautiful images that show sunsets and the casinos, which are to the right. I'll do my best to show you in a moment, but some gorgeous images.

45:03 I contacted the artists and I couldn't afford them for this episode. So if you want to support the lighthouse lowdown for future content, please. Send us money. Do something, like follow, tell your friends at church, whatever. I love this photo. Lighthouses are so cool. There's just nothing like them. Yeah, especially tall ones. Something about it. Yeah, and like we were showing that there's like casino, hotel or whatever in the background and it's taller than this lighthouse, but it's still like seeing a lighthouse is so neat. When you, if you were going here for a casino and you see the lighthouse, you'd be like, oh my gosh, look at that. Yeah, check this out. So we're gonna rotate. There's a scene we just saw. We're gonna rotate again out to the water. We were just looking here. What is that building? Those are all casinos.

45:44 I mean, grand, big. These are older hotels, smaller hotels. Yeah. The more the money is down this way and then back behind us in the screen is a huge development that's new to you. These vegetables? Yes, the gardens are back. These are much smaller than they were. I think the whole two acres was covered in gardens. This should just make it into a botanical garden. People always visit botanical gardens when they travel. It's like, oh, we could go see those. When we went to Spain, we went to- Yeah, they're pretty. Botanical gardens. I think right here might've been the second assistant keeper's house that burned down. It looks like a house layout. Because here is that pathway. Yeah, the 30 feet one. So this one was restored. If you're a head keeper, maybe that's your house.

46:26 It would be pretty fancy. So Trevor is the artist I talked about. I won't show the photos because I didn't pay for them, but there are beautiful photos and you can view them on his site. Oh, good. If you want to. Epsican Lighthouse of Atlanta City. Very nice. A sad story in a different way. Sometimes we end off on bad news, but I think- Well, at least it's still there. Yeah, everything can come. Anything can come back around. Yeah, think about it. If you want to develop something for tourism, it's already there. The hard part's already done. It already has history. You don't have to make new history. Try to be a city developer and go and see what we're going to do. But Atlantic City, go click around on Google and kind of check it out.

47:09 To me, it's weird because I think if we visited, we'd be out of the normal visitors because it's still today more local, large city folks who are getting away. I feel the same when we went to the Outer Banks. Most of the people we met there were from somewhere nearby, but we were the oddballs from the middle of the country. Just trying to see some ocean, any ocean. So what do you think? Anything else to say about Epsican, any questions? I can say the lighthouse, the Keepers House is looking very nice compared to the lighthouse. The restoration did a good job. It's kept up really well. I think it's- Do you remember Point Lookout?

47:50 I covered it really early on, like episode five or something. It was haunted, but it looks- Is it Outer Banks? No, I can't remember where it was. But it looks a lot like this. That's what I thought of when it came up. Cool house, nice porch. Nice wraparound porch. Yeah, that's where the museum is located now, is inside of that facility. So they should put the lens down there. You have to get it down though, and then it's not up there anymore. I guess it is very expensive to get it out of there. Big piece of first order glass. First order non-rotating, which I don't know that I've seen that yet in any other- I think it's probably been around. Well, I know we haven't seen these color schemes. No. Orange and black is pretty cool.

48:31 Yellow is very strange. Yellow and black is cool. White, blue, white. This image is obviously photoshopped. It looks almost bluish. I think that's just the adjustments they've made to see the sunset. That's all I have. Absinthe Lighthouse, Atlantic City, New Jersey, still standing, rock and roll. That's all we can ask. That's really all we can ask. It's been around a long time. So you want to close this out today? Sure. You can check out our website, thelighthouselowdown.com, where we have links to our YouTube and you can listen to all of our podcasts, links, Spotify, and et cetera.

49:13 Oh, and you can leave us a review there too. That's always fun. We love to get reviews. And you can check out our Instagram at the Lighthouse Lowdown, where we post some pictures from each of our episodes. So you can come and check it out if you're not wanting to watch a YouTube video. And I guess that's it. So we hope to see you next time on The Lighthouse Lowdown. ahh