Episode 75 - Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse

0:00 Hi everybody, I'm Emily and I'm Vince and this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. I think that was an accurate representation of Vince's caffeine level. Welcome to another episode sponsored by caffeine. Slightly ahead of schedule is how he's feeling. It's been six weeks since I've had caffeine. With exception to this podcast. Yeah. Just a little treat every once in a while. We deserve it. Today it's Dutch Bros. Dutch Bros. We got a new one nearby. So we used to have to drive about 15 to 20 minutes to go to a Dutch Bros.

0:42 So it'd be a very special occasion. And now it could be an everyday thing. Uh -oh. No, because we don't just get coffee there. We get delectable treats. Yeah, they're blended sugary stuff. Caramel deliciousness. Yeah. So what do we got today? What's happening? Well, I have no history, Bowie, because... Okay, skip it. I really put my heart and soul into this episode. Oh, nice. Yeah. So we'll just go right into it. Hang on, let me tickle. What episode? This is 75? Mm -hmm. 75. We are headed to Southeast Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale. And I have lots of pictures for this one, courtesy of Ralph Krugler. who pretty much gave us almost all the episodes.

1:32 Thanks, Ralph. This doesn't bode well. Pretty much gave us all of the information for this episode and sent us all the pictures that I used. Oh, nice. So he's our sole source for today. Yes, he is basically the sponsor of this episode in knowledge. Is Ralph a listener too? Yes, he's one of our listeners. Thanks, Ralph. Yeah. We'll be hearing from him in the coming weeks, so shout out to Ralph, who's... Exactly. Oh my gosh, that was an extra long one. I cut it off early, too. Okay, so we're going to Florida. I have a picture of why we would want a lighthouse in this area, and that's because there's three reefs that begin at Hillsboro Inlet. That's the lighthouse we're talking about today. And run in segments down to Key West. So I found this cool little site that it's supposed to be a reef finder. So like if you wanted to fish or if you wanted to scuba dive or something, you could find where there's interesting areas to be diving or fishing. You can see this picture, this map that I have up.

2:44 Hillsborough Inlet is up at the top. And then the rest of it you can kind of see. where a lot of shipwrecks have happened. And these are just ones that they have documented right now that doesn't even include all the shipwrecks that have happened in the past. Dang. So that's a long sandbar reef, essentially? Yeah, reef. High spot. So this kind of just shows a reason why you'd want a lighthouse up there. There's just this area that's dangerous, and people traveled along the edge of Florida all the time. The Gulf Stream, which we've talked about in a couple of past episodes, comes only seven miles off the shore, which forced ships to come closer to the coast, but then they would hit the reefs.

3:24 So we're looking at, what, maybe 25? Are these all wrecks? Yeah. Wow. The little brown with a stick, those are all vessels. And then I believe the red squares are metal, and what looks like piles of gold are actually concrete. So they're just like a bunch of little... Points of interest that they labeled on this map. It looks a lot like a ship, that first symbol you mentioned. Yeah, exactly. It's vessels, like sunken vessels. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. So obviously they want a lighthouse here. And if you zoom in on Google Maps and drag all down the east coast of Florida, you can see at every inlet. there's a lighthouse you'll recognize associated with it. So like Jupiter inlet and, um, Oh, what's the other one I saw that was like, Oh shoot.

4:18 Well, I know Jupiter. Yeah. We keep watching the show full swing. Oh yeah. Golf on a pro golf, especially it's on Netflix and they keep showing Jupiter, Florida where a bunch of PGA players live. And apparently there's a beautiful lighthouse. We haven't covered Jupiter, have we? No, we haven't. And it's a good one. Nice. The other one I was thinking of was Ponce de Leon. Ponce de Leon. Ponce de Leon Inlet. So anyway, I just thought it was interesting. I was scrolling. I was trying to find Hillsborough Inlet without having to type it in on this interactive map. And so I just scrolled and scrolled. And every time I hit an inlet, I was like, oh, that one has a lighthouse. It's got to find all the shipwrecks, right? Exactly. So obviously this was a hotspot.

5:00 And so they wanted a lighthouse here. And all the other inlets had lighthouses. The first proposal for a lighthouse was in 1852, along with one for Jupiter Inlet. But Jupiter was awarded a lighthouse and Hillsborough was not. Just in 1800s? Okay. Yeah, 1850. My mind was wandering. I'm looking at this image. I looked up and I was like, he's zoned in on the map. I should just cover it up. Well, and for those who are just listening, you know, this is, we described what we're seeing, but I've seen other maps like this. And I was thinking back to... When we went to the Outer Banks, which is in North Carolina, the graveyard of the Atlantic, which is something we kept seeing. And so many shipwrecks were up there. And that's why there's so many lighthouses, especially tall ones on the Outer Banks, the tallest in the United States, right? Hatteras?

5:50 Yes. So anyways, I was thinking, where have I seen this? And then I was thinking about all the references to graveyard of the Pacific, graveyard of the Atlantic, graveyard of the Keys. So, sorry. It's nice to know what goes on inside your head when you're zoned out. But anyway, so Hillsborough didn't get a lighthouse at this first proposal. And after years and years of captains and sailors asking for lighthouses to mark the reefs, it wasn't until 1900 that they actually went forward with it. And the lighthouse board actually made requests to Congress annually saying, quote, the establishment of a light at or near Hillsborough Point, Florida, would be of great assistance to all vessels navigating these waters. That seems like a good point. Exactly. Do you know?

7:01 This is a weird question. Was that a recurring? You said it was yearly. Yeah. Did they send the same? I'm sure the same. Do you try to make an appeal every year? You wouldn't want it to turn. I really want it. Yeah. You wouldn't want to turn it into white noise where it's like, oh, here we go. We got the same copied. So I wonder if they tried to make a different kind of appeal every year. But the gist of it is the same. Like, hello. It was 50 years later before they finally actually started to progress towards having a lighthouse here. Oh, my gosh. So anyway, 1900, the ship. Copenhagen struck a reef just south of the inlet, and finally the state representative introduced a bill for a lighthouse, and it was passed. So that was the beginning of building the Hillsborough Inlet Lighthouse. The budget was $9 ,000. $9 ,000. $9 ,000. $18 buckskins.

7:52 I wish coffee had the same effect on me as it has on you. And five doubloons. I feel like we can comment a little bit. We're pushing the pace. We can calm a little bit. I think I'm just excited because I put a lot of feeling into this. Okay. So I'm like wanting you to know all the information. More footwork, more energy. One of those. More footwork, more energy. Thank you. Exactly. The budget was $90 ,000. And this is also my fault because I put 90K and it kind of just destroys getting it out correctly. Yeah. So that was for the entire station. And after much deliberation, the design of an octagonal skeletal tower was chosen, which. In the 1850s. In 1900. Oh, it's 50 years later. Yeah. I have a picture. That makes more sense. Oh. So here's a picture of when it was being built. This is 1906. Looks a lot like some other Florida lighthouses we've learned about. I know. And actually, Hillsborough is the sister lighthouse of Cape Charles, Virginia, Hog Island, Virginia, and Cape Fear, North Carolina, which I talked about in our last episode. having the heaviest mercury float system in the U .S.

9:02 Cool name, too. But it's no longer there, so it's kind of a bummer. There's actually a video of it being demolished, which is interesting. This image is black and white, 1906. April 14th. That's the date right now. Pretty close. Okay. I keep looking at expiration dates in the fridge. Anyways, April 14th, 1906. There's an enormous stack next to this. Is it like a manufacturing? I have no idea. That's not something that's there now. The stack is as tall as the lighthouse body. Yeah. The tower, I should say. Don't know. Yeah, maybe it was one of those situations where they set up a bunch of stuff nearby. Like how they used to make, I don't know how this would translate to this, but when they used to make, my gosh, like clay brick. manufacturing spots right next to the lighthouse so that they could just use the bricks right as they were finished. That's right. Maybe, yeah, you build a whole construction campus. Yeah, exactly. Cool. Beautiful photo.

9:59 Yeah, and there's a lot of them. So buckle down because we've got some great pictures. So the reason why they chose a skeletal lighthouse was because it was lower cost, lighter in weight overall, and better on sand, which is Hillsborough Inlet is all sand. Better for that. And also in hurricane winds, which this is a barrier island, so there's nothing to obscure it from getting full force of hurricanes. So that's why they chose a skeletal light. And Ralph also said that 12 feet below the sand is a coral reef, like a long dead coral reef. I'm like, how do you know that? Is it all like radar? geo geotech reports yeah anytime you go anytime you go build a building um commercially now you know we we scan and we thump and we it's not my it's it's clearly it's not my field but there is there are trucks that go out and actually pound the ground oh and other sensors pick up the vibrations and it helps to scan what kind of bedrock and how deep it is and um Anyways, I'll get too far off track, but I bet you. That's super cool.

11:06 They've done a bunch of reports for construction in this area. Okay, that's awesome. And Ralph also sent like a description of how. how this structure moves with the wind and everything. So he said, as the winds blow, the windward sides tension rods tighten and the leeward sides slackens. And this allows the tower to rock and the pressure is removed from the center cylinder of the skeletal tower. The lighthouse isn't welded or riveted. It's slotted and screwed together. And every piece tightens the structure from the legs outside to the staircase inside. Huh. So that probably allows for more movement than welding or rivets. Yeah, where it's really firm. Yeah. And we were learning, that strength and stress or strength and toughness are not the same thing. Yeah. Right.

11:50 Material science. Cool. Yeah. It was actually forged in Detroit and I, I wanted to draw its path because it was forged in Detroit, set up, taken down. So they put it together to, Oh, this is in Detroit, this picture. Okay. Okay. So this is where it was forged. They put it up and then they took it back down and then they sent it. to Hillsborough Inlet. And so they packed it up, shipped it across Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and followed that all the way to arrive in Miami. So anyway, I wanted to make a, a path that showed the route that I had to take all the way from Detroit to like Hillsborough. That's a long way. Yeah. It's crazy. And they put it on barges in Miami and then brought it up the canal, which is now known as the Intracoastal Waterway, which I'll show a pic. I'll show a sliver of it in later screenshots. This is before the interstate system. Oh. No, it was. Eisenhower.

12:48 That's a World War II thing. The Germans had the Autobahn. And so when we were over there, we saw how transportation worked and how that state system made sense for highways and interstates. So all little highways and roads to make it across the country. Right at this time? Yeah. Interesting. I guess that makes sense. Before World War II, yeah. World War II seems really late for having efficient roadways. Nuts. I guess it was all trains and ships for a while, so checks out. Checks out. And the tower was painted black on the top two -thirds, including the lantern room.

13:28 And by the way, which is a really nice lantern room. That's nice. Yeah, I just like the... Like diamond shapes on like panels. The external glass. Yeah. Really nice. Looks very expensive. Yeah. And then the bottom third is painted white. So it's very pretty, very clean. There were three keepers cottages that were built with separate kitchens attached with a breezeway. And rainwater was caught off the roofs and settled in a cistern under these breezeways. Each keeper also had a storehouse. And on the back of that was where they had like the bathroom. That looks like a really nice keeper's apartments. Yeah. Well, at the very least, they're very uniform and spacious.

14:09 Palm trees going on. One per family, which is not something we see in a lot of lighthouses. Rare. So those keeper's cottages were built in 1906, and then the lighthouse was the last thing to be put up and finished in 1907. That's a smart way to do it. Yeah. I feel like it's not always done that way. No. I think, yeah. Can make it difficult. It probably also makes a difference that this was built somewhere else and then brought over. Yeah. They were like, let's just finish everything else while it's being built in Detroit and then worry about that later. Which is funny because the tower is the focal point of the station. Yeah. For it to be the last thing that goes up is kind of funny. The whole reason the keepers' houses are there. Right. And actually, so this lighthouse was supposed to be a first order, but due to like a bunch of delays, they had to choose between a first order beehive style lens that was currently in storage, which it sounds like the beehive style lens was like obsolete.

15:03 Like they didn't really have those anymore. So they had to choose between that or a brand new second order clamshell style, which we really love. It's so pretty. that they could buy brand new and was well within their budget because they're planning on a first order lens. So second order is going to be significantly cheaper than that. The second order actually ended up being brighter. And according to Ralph Krugler, they've been the brightest active aid to navigation for many years. And only two lighthouses are brighter than this lighthouse, but they're privately owned and only lit like for special occasions in Europe. I'm really interested to know more about that. Do you have any more right now? We can ask Ralph when we talk to him. No, we'll have to ask him more information. I pulled up a picture of the lens that was purchased and then Ralph sent a couple of good pictures. The middle one shows what, you know, the bottom part, like the non -frenel lens part, like the support structure.

15:59 You could see where there used to be clockwork and then the mercury trough and... The drain and floor lights. And I wasn't going to include the floor lights, even though I really wanted to, because I didn't have a reason to talk about them. And then I included this picture that shows the bottom half of the... I've never seen floor lights. I know. It's a history buoy. So I saw a little piece of it in there and I was like, oh, I can include the picture. That's really neat. So they're just holes cut in the floor, little ones covered with glass. And this is very similar to... When I did deck lights. With the prism. Yeah, with the prisms. So it's kind of the same idea, I'm sure, but pretty neat. Yeah, it looks like the top of a salt and pepper shaker.

16:40 Yeah. It's much larger. So those. So cute. Presumably those would light the area below for maintenance. Exactly. Anytime they're checking stuff out. That's awesome. Yeah. And I mean, you can see just from the picture, he included how brightly lit it is just from the lights overhead. It's also cool to see a really, really old picture of it before it was put in the lighthouse compared to what it looks like in the lighthouse in the current day. It all matches. If you look at it, it all matches up. It's pretty cool. Did you put these markups on this image? No, he did that. He really helped us out. This is a man after my own heart. Looks like an engineer did it. Three -quarter horsepower pool pump motor. Where clockwork was. Arrows. It's bold. It's red. So helpful. I like this guy. I know. He has it all figured out. And I wish we could have included everything that he sent us because he sent, oh my gosh, there's so much cool stories. If we don't get to stuff, maybe we'll do a deep dive someday as kind of bonus information. After we've covered all the lighthouses in the U .S., we can go back around and just include stuff we've learned. Clamshells. Love them. Second order clamshell was the selection. Yes. That's what we went with and ended up being perfectly bright.

17:57 You didn't even need a first order. It functioned. So they were planning on a first order and then you said they had two options. The options were a honeycomb. Because there were delays. It was either you have one that's already in storage and it happened to be this lens that they didn't want. Or you could order a new second order. So they went with that route. Our first day of service was March 8th, 1907. The lens floated on 450 pounds of mercury and had a 10 -second flash, so it would do one rotation in 20 seconds. It's a long flash. It's pretty fast. The lampist who put the lens together installed a fifth -order cable in the clockwork. And I had to ask for clarification on this because we have not covered clockwork yet, and so I was like, cable? I was like, what? I just couldn't really even envision it in my head. I, Ralph sent a picture of some clockwork. It's not Hillsborough Inlet, but it's an example of what it would have looked like.

18:59 And so there's this cable that holds onto the weight and the weight slowly falling is what turns the lens, like with all the gears and everything. I mean, obviously the heavier the weight of the lens, the thicker your cable needs to be so that it doesn't. get messed up so they installed a fifth order cable with a second order lens and so the cable would get like bound up a few times oh man um do you know what that means bound yes like if something gets bound up yeah usually uh binding refers to the crossover of cable so instead of like if you reel that up it's like let's say it's an extension cord you know you're going to reel it up in the garage okay ideally you'd go you know in an order like Reel, reel, reel, so there's no crossover. And winches and cables often work in a similar fashion to where you set them that way, they reel and unreal, but the binding may happen because the cable's overly stressed or it's just not laid out well.

20:01 So it crosses over, and then if you have too much crossover, the radius can build up too quick, so you don't have enough room to collect all the cable as it's reeled back up. As it goes to unreal, now it's caught instead of continuing to unroll. It's bound is the term used. You know what's funny? I asked Ralph to explain it, and he said that you would be able to tell me. Based on what? What did you tell him? He listens to our podcast, so he's like, Vince will be able to tell you that. Nice. Well, Ralph. I was worried about asking you in case you were like, I don't know. I'm asking for a lot, but I would be really interested to see if that's what he wanted. I was going to get all excited. Oh, mechanical engineers and gears. These are straight tooth gears. Maybe you should do clockwork because I don't know. I'm chemical. I don't know. I can cover clockwork if we want. Okay. You should do that because I did mercury float. So it's actually, it's only fair. Yeah. I mean, this is, looks like brass gear work. I know this is not our lighthouse. I know. I wonder which lighthouse it's from. Really cool. The race. I mean, I did study this in school. just entry -level stuff to get through a bachelor's, but the sizing of gears and the number of teeth and how that system comes together is really interesting to me. So we will talk about it more when we get to clockwork, and I'll probably get a little off the rails talking about different components. I think it's better to have too much detail. Yeah. And I'm

21:34 going to go on a really small tangent. Okay. This is... Well, not this, but our lighthouse was built in 1906 was the completion. Think about material science. Like we didn't know almost anything. We knew so much, you know, standing on the shoulders of giants and all that. However, one of the material science things that I find entertaining is the Titanic, which sunk in 1913, I believe. One of the things that happened, and they didn't know this, the steel that the hole was made out of was relatively pliable. So like I said earlier, there's strength and then there's toughness. Strength is resistance to forces. Toughness is how far you can displace something before it fails. Whether that's a seam that opens or a crack or whatever it might be. And the whole of the Titanic, when it got hit by the iceberg or vice versa, it was cold enough because the waters that it was in, that it split. It cracked like a brittle rock or a piece of glass rather than, the toughness being great enough to deform and dent, which would have really helped them out. But that was the ductile to brittle transition temperature in different alloys and steels is based on what temperature it's at, how it's going to break. And so for a reference of where you're at in history, 1906, 1913, and the people who built the Titanic were in North Ireland, like it was known to be the best. ship building one of the best ship building areas in the world

23:05 and still is today yeah so like you know what you know you don't know what you don't know yeah and things have changed over time especially in the 1900s where like a few years made so much difference between our knowledge on subjects and yeah like it was just everything everything was like research yeah it always it breaks this way i'm gonna write a paper and then someone across the world who's also In that area reads the paper and then validates it. And yeah, it's like we talked about concrete and Portland cement and arguing over who actually invented Portland cement. Oh yeah. Yeah. So interesting. Cool. So whenever the cable would get bound up, two keepers would take the clockwork completely apart.

23:50 And the third had to hand turn the lens to make sure that it flashed exactly 10 seconds every time. And last time they had to do that for six hours, like that six hours of a guy hand turning the lens perfectly. Like you have to focus. You can't just zone out. It has to be perfect because people are counting on it. That sounds exhausting. Yeah. So the next year in 1908, the correct cable was supplied and thus did not have to worry about that problem anymore. Really interesting. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to pull up an overhead photo because we were talking about the Intracoastal Waterway. It's a horrible, blurry screenshot. Lighthouse Cove Resort? I knew the second I pulled it up. And if you go to the very bottom corner.

24:35 Oh, there's a golf shop down there. I took a screenshot and I was like, I'll just do like the tiniest little piece of this down. There's a movie theater. Quit naming off stuff because, yeah. I'll be talking more about some other stuff in here. In this picture, from right to left, we have the Atlantic Ocean, obviously. And then we have the barrier island where we have Hillsborough Inlet Lighthouse. And then we have the Intracoastal Waterway, ICW. And then past the houses and the highway and all of that is the Everglades. Nice. So wildfires were really common in the Everglades from lightning strikes, weirdly. Though people tried to claim it was from the lighthouse lens because it was right next, like, I guess you would. Try to make a connection like that. It's like chemtrails. Some people still today, maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't think chemtrails are a thing. But some people are just convinced.

25:31 Absolutely, yeah. Because there's lots of weird things going on. When a plane goes through the sky, there's two things that happen. They claim one is there is condensate. Two, chemtrails. So lighthouse causes fires. I had a friend at work that... You know, all of our cars were disgusting after it rained. And she was like chemtrails. And I was like, we had record high levels of pollen in the air yesterday. So it rained and it's all on our vehicle. And it's windy. Anytime it rains and it's windy and you live anywhere near Kansas City, you get brown spots all over. Must be chemtrails. But yeah, she's like chemtrails. I shouldn't make fun because what if I'm wrong?

26:14 I know we could be. I wanted to make fun so bad. But when there's other more plausible explanations, I'm like, I'm not listening to that. I keep seeing like conspiracy stuff on my Facebook and I'm like, why am I getting targeted with this? I don't believe in any conspiracy theories. We're in that time right now when conspiracies are alive. Now, a lighthouse somewhere, I am certain, I ham certain. I ham certain. Holiday ham is responsible for starting a fire. Of course. I'm certain it has happened. Yes, it has, has, has. Has, has. Two hases. Ham, has, has. You laugh quietly away from the microphone. I'm trying not to. I wanted to go down the holiday ham work thing. No, don't. Don't do it. Yeah, so we'll skip that. Ham gate. Okay, can I move on? Yeah, the inner water work way. Okay, so yeah, anyway.

27:08 It's like there's whiskey in me. I know. What, is there alcohol? Hang on. So they tried to claim it was from the lighthouse lens, these wildfires, but it's impossible because the lantern room is curtained during the daytime. So that's the end of that. But it's kind of fun for people to have conspiracy theories. And the beam under candle, oh my gosh, the beacon light would not. be sufficiently focused to cause a fire and well because it's supposed to focus inside to outside so like sunlight beaming from the outside doesn't really have the same effect as a lighthouse lens and although it has happened clamshell lenses are built to produce a light that goes horizontally not focus on the ground yeah so yeah um i pulled up pictures to show even in 1912 that you could see the curtain in the lantern room that's so it was pretty consistent this looks like a great time to visit this place i know well oh oh i'm at the end i'm gonna pull up their inlet view cam they have like a little live cam it is so beautiful i just can't believe that we're gonna go to florida i can't believe that people get to live there i'm so jealous It's so blue and just like you can see the wind is blowing and there's people out on their little boats. Like when I was watching, there was some guy parasailing in the background. I'm like, get out of here.

28:38 We just got our bleary trees and planes. Yeah. Kansas City is not top of a lot of people's lists. I do think it's a pretty great place to live. It's definitely not landscape wise. Better than other places to visit. If you're looking for delicious food and cool bars. We have barbecue that'll compete with the best cities. Museums and stuff. Yeah. And you can live here. You can afford to live here and you can buy a Mustang and you can take once a year vacations to see a lighthouse somewhere. Yeah, it's affordable. There's no way I could live at Hillsboro Inlet. Apparently it's pretty affluent. Well, I was thinking, what's the enter something waterway?

29:20 Intercoastal. All the houses on there have got to be awesome. They have their own dock. Take your boat to go to the ocean. Yeah. To us, you may be laughing. To us, that's like a totally foreign. Very, yeah, novel idea that you take a boat anywhere. A boat where? All right. I'm just sad. Anyways, keepers often saw fires on the mainland, and so they would just. keep an eye on it or report it or whatever. Oh yeah, from the tower. Yeah. But in 1921, Keeper Thomas Knight, who was our second keeper at this lighthouse, discovered the fire that he had been keeping an eye on was actually on the barrier island.

30:01 So he's like, oh, oh crap. Oh, where are the lighthouses located? So he and the two assistant keepers packed up their families so that they could run to the other side. And they went back and returned to fight the fire's progression so they could try and save the lighthouse for me. Burned to the ground. So they went up to the island to a strategic spot. And this is Ralph. Cleared out a 10 -foot wide swath from canal to beach. Dug it down three feet. Did a back burn on the north and continuously doused the south side with water. And when the fire arrived, it died because there was no fuel. That is awesome. So they did this all in one day and single -handedly saved the lighthouse from being burned down. By hand? Yes. With shovels. Shovels and axes.

30:44 These are real strong folks. Yeah. Burly men. I'm looking at thick trees and brush. If that's what they, maybe they chose a choice spot, but if they did a 10 foot swath through that. Yeah. Wow. Good for them. I know. Be exhausted afterwards. That's awesome though. Yeah. I wonder if the lighthouse probably wouldn't burn itself because it's steel. Well, it'd get damaged for sure, but all the houses would be lost. It'd be toast. It'd be terrible. It'd be terrible, especially because that's. All of their lives are in the houses, too. It's just like living in a house, so you lose everything. But the Inlet Island, is that what it's called? Barrier Island. Barrier Island. Most of it burned then, or a significant portion? I don't know. The lighthouse was saved.

31:32 Who cares about the rest, you know? What else of significance was on there? I don't know. But actually, I don't know. At that time, what year did I say? 1916 or something? 1921? How much was it actually developed? There's probably not that many people. Yeah, because our focus on coastal living was not founded in the early years because it was hard to live there. Maybe this is stupid to say, but Lanai, the awful fire that happened, was it last year? Is that what it's called? I thought it was. Hawaii. We did the lighthouse. I thought it was Lanai. Lahaina.

32:15 Lahaina. I don't know where Lanai's at. Lahaina. I'm awful. No, I didn't remember either. All I meant to say is a coastal community that's densely populated today, it's hard to evacuate. Right. Yeah, if there were people, it would be a struggle. Even a guy that's 137 feet in the air can't see that there's a fire coming on his own barrier island for a while. be hard well that's for people like that's not their primary job yeah time they're going to be looking out towards the water true and for ships and anyways so a little more about thomas knight our second keeper yeah he was one of the most commended keepers in the service and um we could see that from him putting out a fire by himself that's so crazy yeah he came from a long line of lighthouse keepers like his grandfather his father uncles cousins like most of them were at cape um Cape Canaveral, I think. Yeah. And Thomas followed in his family's footsteps and served as first assistant at Cape Canaveral from 1904 to 1911.

33:23 He had a brother who was kind of the black sheep of the family. His name was Eugene Theodore Knight and later known as Cap, short for Captain. That's a cool name. I was going to go into his whole background because he left at 13. He ran away at 13 and ended up working on a lighthouse tender for a while and then like... Has this huge backstory. I included, well, let me just keep going and then I'll tell you. So when Thomas was promoted to Hillsborough, Cap moved to the area as a rum runner. And legend has it that Thomas would flash a signal letting him know when the coast was clear for him to bring his booze that he acquired in the Bahamas into the inlet. And so he would sink those in watertight oil sacks just up the canal attached to buoys. And so when someone would place an order, he would row out, take up the package, like take out whatever was ordered and then sink it again. It's pretty cool. During Prohibition? Yeah. Well, and even, you know, rum running is bootlegging and whatnot has happened outside of Prohibition as well. Just illegal alcohol. But yeah, that was his, that was what he was doing. And Tom served as head keeper until 1936. And he actually served at Jupiter Inlet for just one year in 1919. So I'm not sure. Like, not sure what happened there because Hillsborough Inlet had a different head keeper for just that one year. And then Thomas came back. So, don't know. Weird. It's a history mystery. He retired at 58 years old, but his retirement physical

34:54 presented like a 98 -year -old. Oh, no. So, he had worked pretty darn hard. Isn't that crazy? Well, this is because the entire lighthouse, keeper's houses, and even the lining of the cistern were painted with lead paint. And they repainted those every three years. And so that, on top of having a mercury float that he had to deal with all the time, took its toll on his body. And he passed away a year after retiring. So at 52? 59. Retired at 58? Yeah. I mean, people's life expectancy is going up. Maybe now it's going down again because of our... Whatever the next mercury is going to be, right? Whatever the next lead paint is going to be. But that's tough.

35:39 He served through a couple of really powerful hurricanes, one in 1926 and one in 1928. And the Keeper's Cottages are on the highest point on the barrier island. And on top of that, they're three feet off the ground. And yet water still came up between the floorboards during these hurricanes. And mercury splashed out of the basin from how much the light was swaying. And Keeper Knight reported, quote, from 3 to 8 a .m. on September 19, 1926, my birthday. I mean, not the year, but the day. Solid green seas swept entirely across the reservation, carrying away the boathouse and the decking of the wharf. The bank around the base of the tower was cut away so that the concrete foundation was exposed to a depth of eight feet. And at high tide, the sea continues to wash around the base of the tower. 15 persons whose houses were completely destroyed were given refuge at the station during the hurricane. Damage was also done to the dwelling and supplies stored in the boathouse were lost.

36:36 Another instance of when hurricanes happen that people can count on a lighthouse to withstand the storm, which I think is crazy. I mean, it makes sense that's what they're built for, and we just talked about it earlier in the episode. This one was selected specifically to handle hurricanes. Wow. And most other structures, if you exposed eight feet of their foundation, you're either going to run out of foundation or that structure is not going to be sound anymore. Crazy. And I just think nowadays people wouldn't know. Like if for some reason you get caught in a hurricane, which is unlikely these days, you'd have to decide to stay or like not have a means of escaping. The lighthouse is probably your best bet for making it. What was the recent hurricane in Florida?

37:24 Sanibel? Sanisbel? Well, Sanibel got washed almost away from that one. Right, but one of the legs broke. Yeah. There was an image of Sanibel, which reminds me of this same style of structure. Yeah, exactly. Where one of the legs had broken off. Like several feet were missing. And it's still there. Yeah. And they repaired it. But everything around it was completely gone. Like the beach was changed. The trees were gone. Keeper's Cottage destroyed. Yeah, we looked at some overhead footage. It was sad. That was depressing. Gosh, it's crazy the kind of storms that can take place. Strong lighthouses. Anyway, I mean, yeah, we've proven time and time again that they'll stand up to the storm. These hurricanes showed Cap, Thomas's little brother, that his position close to his brother on the inlet was too vulnerable. So he chose a spot slightly further inland to build a restaurant and beached a barge, like purposefully beached, like grounded a barge. Breaking it down to bare bones and building it into a restaurant using bamboo, pine, and deck boards from ships.

38:28 Is it still there? Yes, it's still there. Did I see it on the map? Yeah. I almost said something. You said, don't say anything. I said, no, no, no. I love restaurants and bars. It's called Caps Place and it's still there today. And so I have a photo, an overhead. You can see there's like a little drop pin, the red one, where Caps Place is. And then all the way at the bottom, you have Hillsborough Inlet Lighthouse, the purple. And so here's some pictures I just took off of that people took to leave reviews on their website. It has great reviews. And the only way to get there, because I wish I had done more labeling. The drop -in that says Cap's Place, that's where you get picked up by a boat and taken to Cap's Place, which can only be... It's in the water somewhere? Yeah, it's to the right. See that little island, right? The Naughty Dog Marina Cafe. It's over there. That little house sticking out on little, at the very top, there's like a tiny thing sticking out into the water. That's where you get off the boat and then Cap's place is inland. That is really cool. So cool. I've heard it's delicious and kind of expensive. This is pretty neat. I know. There's also, I mean, the naughty dog, big fan. That's where you and I, if we were just browsing online, we'd be like, Naughty Dog, we're definitely going there. We know about the Salty Dog. This has got to be close. Naughty Dog. Does it have a faux lighthouse on it? Was there an explosion of poop nearby?

39:57 I totally forgot about that. Those of you that know the Salty Dog Saloon. Yeah. There you go. Or you can just go listen to our episode. Go look it up. We talk all about it. Anyway, I thought that was neat. Really cool bit of history that. A rum runner built a restaurant out of a barge that he beached, and it's still there today. So is the barge still there? The restaurant is built from the bones of the barge. Wow, that's really neat. Awesome. Love it. The rebellious younger brother of one of our most outstanding lighthouse keepers. He's probably like, oh my gosh, how did this happen? Moving on. 1932, the lighthouse was electrified with the second assistant position ending a year later. And so the primary keeper's cottage was auctioned off. And so the last two keeper's cottages were used for the primary and the first assistant keeper. In 1944, a concrete building was built as a generator slash radio building, which, by the way, is Ralph's office right now. No way. I'm like, that's awesome.

41:01 But anyway, radio towers sent a Morse code signal up the coast to like say which lighthouse. You know how they switch now to like radio positioning and stuff. Visually, the lighthouse isn't as useful as it used to be because we have radio signals. But Hillsborough Inlet had the letter Q for designating which lighthouse the radio signal is coming from. I thought that was kind of cute. Designation Q. Cute. The antenna was actually taller than the lighthouse at 143 feet. Oh my gosh. Like, how is that possible? Super radio. Yeah. That's the type of radio that would get through your bones. You know what a bag phone is? No. So a bag phone was one of the first cell phone, well, not cell phones, mobile phone that you could have in a vehicle. I think they were made for the military. Okay. But my dad had one.

41:49 He had a 1953 or 52 power wagon, which is a Dodge truck. It was a military truck. I'm really sad it's gone. But when he first got it, it had a bag phone that was a part of the truck. So it was permanently in the vehicle. You couldn't take it out. It's powered by the vehicle. But it worked on radio signal. So you could make a call. And he said it was like ultra crisp. Oh, really? Like mobile phones, cell phones didn't catch up until like the 2000s. Interesting. And this is World War II technology. Yeah. Maybe a little later. And supposedly early communications technology like that was like really like, I don't know if radioactive, that's not the right word. I should know this. It's like powerful.

42:39 Really powerful and had health concerns with being around it. Interesting. And I would guess some of the early 140 foot tall antennas are similar to, maybe that's not true either. Yeah. I think it was supposed. I'll have to do some research. We'll get back to you on that. Okay, excellent. Yeah, I'd like to know more about that. I don't know anything about radios and stuff. I actually don't even really understand how it works. Yeah, I barely made it through circuits and I'm an engineer. Oh, physics? This is why I became a chemical engineer because I just really sucked at physics. Everything else is pretty focused on physics. Like if you do civil engineering and mechanical and everything, but chemical is as far away as you can get from physics. So that's what I did. We used to poke fun at the civil engineers and the structural engineers because... mechanical engineers we took statics and dynamics two different classes that are kind of advanced physics statics we'd look at like trusses and and things that don't move yeah and then it's fairly easy for the engineering students and then dynamics everything's moving and all of a sudden everything that was assumed to be zero in statics is now chaos you know momentum and and it's really challenging but we'd make fun of our civil and structural buddies because Oh, is everything staying still or is your project falling to the ground? Is the bridge moving?

44:01 Probably shouldn't be. Yeah. You know, we're all the mechanical, like we were doing gears and. That's funny. Lots of complex things, but other engineers made fun of us too. Of course. We need every type, so. Yes, absolutely. There's no bad type of engineering. Wow. We got off topic. Where am I? Let's see. 140 foot. Yeah. The assistant's house. became the Admiral's house, which was used by high ranking officials as a vacation spot. Cause at this point it was now owned by the coast guard. Oh, nice. It was a great perk because it was obviously this land was close to the public at the time and they didn't have to stay in a hotel while they were visiting. And there was like a boat for fishing and everything.

44:43 So is there a little fancy vacation house? Do you know, is there a Navy base nearby? No, I don't know that. I feel like it's so well developed around here that there wouldn't be. I've been surprised lately. How do I say this? Some of the work that I'm involved in these days has to do with military contractors. Not often, but time to time. And the places I've learned that there's Air Force bases, I've been shocked. Yeah. Cape Canaveral is where SpaceX... Cape Canaveral, I think, is where NASA had an operations. Okay, because. Houston was, you know, Houston, we have a problem, right? Yeah. But I think the launch pad, one of the big ones at least. SpaceX just took off from Cape Canaveral, I think. Is that when they rescued the astronauts that were stranded?

45:36 I just saw it when I was like looking up how to pronounce Cape Canaveral. And I didn't, it was like, this is not the lighthouse I'm covering right now, so I'm not going to go deep into it. But anyway, since you mentioned it. I don't know much about it. I just want, because the Admirals, I wonder if there's a Navy ship here. You notice this road that they have on here is called Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway. I didn't know that, but that's awesome. Is Margaritaville at the south side or the north side? Where is Margaritaville? That's so funny. Can you imagine being so ingrained in coastal ideas that you have a highway named? A dude who's a singer who's a white guy is like. We stand away again in Margaritaville. And we're like, you know what? We should have restaurants, bars, highways. Let's talk about Hillsborough and the lighthouse. Then we're like, the highway's named after Jimmy Buffett. It's literally like a culture of drinking and driving a boat. Oh, gosh. So funny. It's the American dream. Anyway, I didn't notice that before. 1972, the light was automated and all crew were dismissed aside from one keeper and their family. And in 1992, the light mechanism broke down since by that point, 50 pounds of mercury had slowly evaporated from the trough. Into the 90s? It stopped working.

46:55 Yeah, it probably ground out. 1907 to 1992, it just slowly... That is nuts. Also, I don't know how much 50 pounds of mercury is. There was 450 in this trough originally. So, I mean, whatever it is, it was enough for the light to run aground in... The bed. Don't change your oil, you know. Yeah, if you're not topping off your mercury, then it's going to run out. They installed a weak temporary light at that point, and the U .S. Coast Guard was going to remove the Fresnel lens and give it to the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, who really wanted it for the museum, which would be a good way to display history. It's not like something evil, but definitely...

47:36 Did it disappear into the black market? It's in someone's living room now? I want proof. If you're going to keep using that as an example that it's in somebody's living room, I want you to give proof. Here's the deal. I, by trade, design HVAC and plumbing. I worked in construction for a little bit. So unless you're asking me about those things, I'm just gunslinging. I'm just out here. We are for entertainment purposes and light level education. I'll just talk over you next time you start to say it then. I have a theory. No. That a bunch of nautical things like old lanterns that are missing, lenses that are missing, gear work, all these things that are missing are in people's private collections.

48:25 Wait, like Cape Fear, the Fresnel lens was broken up into individual prisms and scattered. Yeah. And so now. You think they threw it in the trash? No, they're slowly putting it back together by finding the prisms. How cool. Very cool. Well, I want to cover that lighthouse, but I just, I thought about that, that it's like real. Yeah. I mean, I've recently, I've bought a couple, you know, to be fair, it's very expensive, but a couple things for house decorations that are from a ship salvage yard. Yeah. I don't know if they want me to talk about them or not. So I won't hear, but what do you think they're black market or something? No, I just mean that that's not illegal. And that's, that's what they do.

49:09 Salvage. Yeah. Like I bought, Brass cleats that were on a ship. I brought a, so what is that? A small port or starboard. It's red. Hang on. No, I got it. Oh no, I don't got it. I think it's starboard side. I know port is left and right is starboard. I think that's red. It's red because it's right. Well, it's a red lantern and it was on a, it's on a, it's Japanese made, but it was on a ship for, you know, 40, 50 years. So anyways, the point is, imagine if you had a lot of money. Portside is red. Portside light. Thank you. Dang it. I was so certain too. I didn't know. I got it wrong too. But the point is, we're like, you know, I decorate the house. That was a present for Emily, that lantern. And so, you know, if we had millions of dollars, maybe somewhere out there, not that it's illegal, but it could be illegal. You never know. That people are selling lighthouse. components you know for and how cool would that be if you don't care about it you didn't care about the history yeah then you'd be like this is awesome and to be completely honest i want a prism from a fresnel lens i want one but if i found out that they were like we have all we are the pieces are missing we're trying to put it back together you know i'd be the first person over there like let me see it when it's done i will trade you this piece To let me see it when it's done. Yeah. Public property,

50:40 in my opinion. Huh? It's really public property. The significant stuff like this. Yeah, for sure. Anyways, I cut you off again. No, you're good. Oh, yeah. I was saying the Fresnelans, the historical society wanted the Fresnelans. So the Hillsborough Lighthouse Preservation Society was formed because of this. And they convinced the Coast Guard that it would cost them a quarter of the cost to restore the lens than it would be to remove it from the lighthouse. So when they went to do this, the air in the lantern room was tested and found to be toxic with mercury vapors. Because at that point, the light was not accessed regularly. And so it was just like this. Fume box. Yes, exactly. So they decided to do a full restoration instead of just doing the lens. So the HLPS installed a track at the bottom of the mercury tub. This is after they drained it and everything. And they put in ball bearings that would rotate the lens and then filled that with oil. On January 28th, 1999, they turned on the light. And exactly a month later, the bearings were crushed under the weight of the lens because they didn't do, they didn't, the ball bearings weren't large enough and they didn't find out. What year? 1999.

51:56 Guys, 1999, we're watching movies all the time. Make sure that your ball bearings can hold. Most of the engineering books that I reference are written way before 1999. Yeah. Like what were you basing your information off of that you know how much this lens weighs? It's incredible to, yeah. I mean, I was going to say, you know, the oil will probably provide some buoyancy to take load off and lubrication for the ball. Yeah, but. Not enough. Everything's got to be... You've got to have lots of... What is it called? You have to be very conservative with your... With the factor of safety. Yes. With your calculations. Make sure you plan for it to be way heavier than it actually is. And that's what they did when they re -lit on August 18th, 2000 with larger ball bearings that could handle up to 20 tons.

52:47 And it has been running well since then. No problems at all. Now again... If somebody could give me one of those ball bearings that's rated for 20 tons. Yeah. That'd be pretty cool. That'd be awesome. I want a Fresnel lens prism, just one, and you want a giant ball bearing. So smooth. It's like a giant Fushigi ball. So smooth. I have a picture I just pulled up of the Fresnel lens. It's just so beautiful. And the first picture is. Those are great photos. the current light source, which is an LED, which kind of even hurts to look at. It's so bright. Which is, yeah. That was changed. I mean, a screen can't, you know, a photo can't produce the same brightness that the source has. Can't actually damage eyeballs, but it hurts. It almost looks like a Doc Ock, like an Ark reference. Too many movie references.

53:39 What I mean is like, it looks like an electrical bolt or something. Oh, oh. The way the photo, never mind. Just ignore me. May 21st, 2021, they changed light source to LED, and that's what we have now and in this picture. So these are both photos from Ralph as well. Just like everything else, nowadays, you can take a tour of the lighthouse, but you must become a member of the HLPS beforehand, which you can do on their website, which is linked in our show notes. And it's $50 for one person, but it gets significantly cheaper. the more people you add, like if you do like a family of six, it's like 150 total or something. Okay. Or like two people is 75. So it's 50 % off one person sort of thing. I'll be honest with you. That's kind of expensive. Well, okay. So a membership gets you a subscription to their newsletter, which is called the big diamond. And I think it's called this because the diamond pattern, they have a big diamond on their front door, which is pretty nice. I, there's so much. He sent me so many pictures and all of them are interesting. And so you can't really just, it's hard to find places to put photos and talk about photos that don't really go together except for, you know, like they're scattered all throughout like 125 years of history. So it's hard to, 125, I don't know why it's 120 years of history. So anyway, I was glad that it said that because I was like, oh, I can include the picture of

55:10 the front door. It's a newsletter. Yeah. It's a big diamond. Yes. And you also get free admission to all tours with a boat ride, programs and lectures. And then you also get timely updates to events related to the lighthouse, which there's a lot going on with it right now because it's undergoing an extensive restoration. And we're going to talk about that in our next episode. So hold that thought for a minute. Okay. Can you give me the letters again? Oh, HLPS. Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society. Preservation Society. Sorry, folks. If you join that, you said you get free tours? Yeah, free admission to all tours. But you have to pay per person. $50 for a person.

55:53 Like, I would pay for a membership. And the membership's $50? Okay. I get you now. Yeah. And it kind of makes sense because you have to take a boat to get there. Yeah. And then it's not just like a park, like, hey, pull up, we're here. It's like someone's going to meet you and give you a tour. So I understand why the cost is a little bit higher. Yeah. And plus that's a membership for a whole year and everything. Great. Very cool. I bet they have swag as well. So here's the live inlet camera. Man. Just feast your eyes. Gorgeous conditions. Look at the water. Palm trees, lighthouse. Really pretty. Yeah, I could watch this. Just pretend that I'm here. I'm glad it's not like storming right now. That's what I thought too. When I was researching this morning, I was like, I hope this doesn't get like dark and stormy by the time I pull it back up again.

56:46 Some giant lightning bolt. Yeah. I guess that would be cool too though. So anyway, that is Hillsborough Inlet Lighthouse. And we're going to be going into more detail. In our next episode with Ralph Krugler. Yeah, I get the, I hear from you and I get the feeling that we're not covering everything he said. No. Such a cool history. I wish we could. There's just so much. Well, let's try to leave, leave some time to talk to Ralph because I have a feeling it's going to go long. Are you going to drink coffee beforehand? I just want to, we get, we rarely get an opportunity to talk to Lighthouse. I was going to say owners, but people executing the actual work. That's another thing I'll just say generally is we've met and had phone calls with several people in this community. There's folks now, Upper Peninsula folks. There's folks in the Bahamas we've talked to, Florida, California is in the works. Yeah.

57:44 And the people we met in person, North Carolina. Yeah. Boston area. It's like Carly and I went and visited a lighthouse in. Oh, we crossed the border into... You were in Delaware. We were in Delaware. So whatever's south of that. I don't know. New Jersey? No. Oh. Rhode Island? I think it's New Jersey. No. Oh, wait. You guys are going to be like, what? These folks are supposed to be kind of smart. We say it every time. I'm bad at geography. I can't remember anything. I'm going over on my phone to the East Coast. South of Delaware is Maryland. Rehoboth Beach is near... Kind of near the border. So it's technically in Delaware, but the street that it's next to is Maryland. You've got to edit that. That was crazy. You're going to lose all credibility.

58:38 The problem was that I couldn't remember the name of the lighthouse right away. I was sitting here thinking of it as you were looking. And so I was like, if I could just remember the name of the lighthouse, I could look it up and see. Because I know that it's literally got a rock outside that's... that's Mark's, um, the state line from Delaware to Maryland. So I was like, I know that it's right on the edge. So anyway, I don't even know how I, I don't know any, what I was going to say was that even when we went to this lighthouse that isn't, doesn't have, you know, feelers out everywhere and you haven't heard of it really. Like most people haven't heard of this Fenwick Island lighthouse. Even there we show up and there's lots of people wanting to hear about it. And the people who own it are just, regular people like you and I who just care a lot about it. And they're like, Oh yeah, come back and see us. We got all this merch and stuff. It's like this old couple. Yeah. Yeah.

59:29 All these folks we talked to, um, that's what I was trying, I was going to get to. And I guess I forgot to is they've been so nice to us and they've been so interested. Most people are interested in their lighthouse. That's kind of the start of their passion, I think. But in general, the history is there. Um, the modern interest today in traveling tourism. Yeah. Um, keeping history alive, you know, all that. It's really, it's really been great. Lighthouse people are the best people. This is the best community to be a part of. I'm saying it right now. Thank you for listening. Cool. Well, I mean, we do have a lot to look forward to the next episode. Yeah. Great. So yeah. And they have places to donate and everything on their website, which is linked in my show notes. So if you can help do it, the restoration is expensive. And so, We'll be talking about that next time. So we hope you stick around and give us a listen. You can check out our Instagram at the Lighthouse Lowdown where we post some pictures from each episode. And you can go to our website, thelighthouselowdown .com. You can send us a voicemail, an email, and listen to all of our episodes and watch our YouTube videos for all of those. And you can also leave us a review there, which we love those. And we hope that you catch us next time on the Lighthouse Lowdown.