A long, long time aglow… but even the brightest shining light will inevitably fade to black. Such is the case with these 9 abandoned lighthouses, rendered into obsolete obelisks by the incremental progress of time and technology.

Whiteford Point Lighthouse – Wales, UK

(images via: Panoramio/Ed Morris and Artificial Owl)

It may not look it but Whiteford Point Lighthouse, located just off the coast of Gower Peninsula at Whiteford Point, south Wales, was a triumph of engineering in its heyday. Think of it, how many cast iron structures dating from the end of the American Civil War are still standing today? Activated in 1866 and snuffed for good in 1921, the lighthouse’s metal walls were once covered in protective black bitumen.

(image via: Artificial Owl)

105 tapered cast-iron plates, each one 32mm (1.28 inches) thick, form the lighthouse’s outer walls. The plates were fastened to one another with cast-iron bolts weighing 2 pounds each. Sixty years after its decommissioning and in response to pleas from area fishermen, the Whiteford Point Lighthouse was relit using an automatic solar-powered beacon but when that failed a few years later, the lighthouse was dimmed permanently.

Sabine Pass Lighthouse – Louisiana, USA

(images via: NOLA.com, W5AZN, cmh2315fl and Captdave5)

Looking at first glance like a mythical Confederate secret weapon, the Sabine Pass Lighthouse in Cameron, Louisiana has stood watch over the Gulf coast since construction was completed in 1856. Though visually just a shadow of its original white-painted glory (black stripes were added in 1932), the octagonal brickwork tower stands 85 feet tall and sports 8 flying buttresses that give it a rocketship shape.

(image via: Lighthouse Explorer)

The Sabine Pass Lighthouse originally ran on whale oil and, barring the Civil War years, remained lit by one means or another from 1857 to 1952. The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and having survived countless hurricanes and marsh fires, presently awaits restoration.

Gardskagi Light – Iceland

(images via: ~steini~ and Oli Haukur)

Built in 1897 and inactive since 1944, Gardskagi Light is located on the northwestern tip of the Reykjanes peninsula about 8 km (5 miles) northwest of Keflavik. The lighthouse consists of an 11 meter (36 ft) tall square tower with a small attached single-story equipment room.

(image via: AssyntNature)

The lighthouse’s lantern has been removed but rather than let the remains slowly deteriorate, the local authorities have reinvented the site as a fenced bird-watching tower with access to the topmost level via the internal stairway. With its whitewashed walls and natty twin red bands, the Gardskagi Light seems about as happy as an abandoned Icelandic lighthouse can be.

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Coast Stories 9 More Abandoned Lighthouses

Is a lighthouse still a lighthouse when the light goes out and no one’s left to call it home? These 7 scenic sentinels slowly succumbing to the endless onslaught of wind and waves stand – barely – as solitary reminders of a time when fog-piercing lighthouse beams guided wayward mariners from the cold clutches of the devil and the deep blue sea.

Mys Aniva, Sakhalin, Russia

(images via: Flavorwire and English Russia)

Built under extremely difficult conditions on a formerly jagged rock just off the southeastern-most cape of Sakhalin island, the Mys Aniva lighthouse has seen a lot of history over its 3/4 of a century lifespan. Japan ordered the lighthouse built in the late 1930s when Sakhalin was divided between that country and the USSR. Sometime after the Soviets seized the whole of Sakhalin at the end of World War II, they installed an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) to supply electricity to the lamp – yes, this was a nuclear-powered lighthouse!

(image via: Remembering Letters and Postcards)

The fall of communism in the early 1990s led to a decade of near-chaos with funds for all purposes in short supply. The Mys Aniva lighthouse, isolated though it was and is, has been looted and ransacked for its metal fittings though luckily its RTGs were removed before the unofficial salvage crews arrived.

Grand Harbor Lighthouse on Fish Fluke Point, Canada

(images via: National Geographic, Lighthouse Friends and Robert Williams Photography)

The Grand Harbour Lighthouse and attached keeper’s house at Fish Fluke Point on Ross Island, New Brunswick, Canada has been in a state of slow-motion collapse since 1963 when the station was closed. The once-picturesque lighthouse’s degeneration was accelerated by the great Groundhog Day Gale of 1976 but though it may make an excellent setting for a horror movie the lighthouse itself refuses to implode.

(image via: Swallowtail Keeper’s Society)

Opened in the fall of 1879, the Grand Harbour Lighthouse was a low-budget affair from the get-go: one of the early keepers was issued a hand-operated foghorn to be used as required. Cheap or not, the wood-framed complex has lasted longer than many stone structures of similar age. At this point it’ll take a superstorm of, say, Sandy-like intensity to finally knock its lights out for good.

Klein Curacao Lighthouse, Curacao

(images via: Curacao-TravelGuide.com, Debi van Zyl and Foter)

The Caribbean island of Curacao bore witness to the golden age of exploration, pirates, treasure-ships and more – and it’s got plenty of shipwrecks to prove it. In 1850 a lighthouse was constructed on the tiny, (3 km2 or 1.2 square mile) island of Klein Curacao situated 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) south-east of the mother island.

(image via: Gordon_C)

In 1877 a powerful hurricane destroyed the original lighthouse and in 1879 a stronger replacement was built. This lighthouse was subsequently storm-damaged and repaired again in 1913. Though the lighthouse had been abandoned decades ago and had been left to decay, the light itself was recently reactivated and an automatic solar-powered LED beacon was installed.

Waugoshance Light, Michigan, USA

(images via: Waugoshance Lighthouse Preservation Society and Beaver Island Jewelry)

Not all lighthouses stand on the seashore; lakes need lighthouses too! Especially great lakes like, er, the Great Lakes where shipping (and shipwrecks) have been commonplace for several centuries. Take the late, great Waugoshance Light for instance. Built in 1851 to replace a lightship guiding ships through a treacherous area of the Straits of Mackinac, the Waugoshance Light was the first Great Lakes lighthouse to be surrounded on water on all sides.

(image via: Divemi)

The Waugoshance Light was built of brick and covered with iron plating – built to last, it was. Unfortunately, the creation of deeper draft ships that had to use the Gray’s Reef passage saw the building of the White Shoal Light and the Grays Reef Light. The Waugoshance Light was decommissioned in 1912 and was used as a gunnery target by the U.S. Navy during World War II. That anything still remains of this rugged feat of engineering after more than 160 years is remarkable to say the least.

Mogadishu Lighthouse, Somalia

(images via: Dissident Nation and National Geographic)

Though shattered by two decades of on & off civil war, the Somali city of Mogadishu has a long and prosperous history based on sea trading. The country’s network of ports appealed to Italian colonizers during the latter quarter of the 19th century and with the establishment of Italian Somaliland extensive infrastructure was built. One of the outstanding and surviving examples is the Mogadishu Lighthouse, or the ruins thereof.

(image via: Frankkeillor)

Its light long dimmed and its open spiral staircase on the verge of collapse, the lighthouse serves these days as a shady retreat for fishermen, gamblers and partakers of the aromatic stimulant shrub called qat.

Rubjerg-Knude Fyr, Denmark

(images via: Environmental Graffiti/Anders Hollenbo, CIB W78 and ForoCoches)

When the Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse in Jutland, Denmark first fired up its lamp on December 27th of 1900, its builders were confident its location atop Lønstrup Klint 60 meters (200ft) above sea level would keep it out of the reach of windblown sand dunes that had made any seaside construction untenable. Though in time the dunes would not be denied, it would take almost 70 years for the lighthouse to be rendered inoperable and a further 35 for all the buildings in the complex to be abandoned altogether.

(image via: Mariorei)

One might think a lighthouse nearly subsumed by sand dunes would be located in the Middle East, North Africa, basically anywhere but Denmark! Live & learn, constant readers and potential lighthouse builders. It’s somewhat ironic a lighthouse constructed to help those who sail the waves would be wrecked by windblown waves of sand.

Great Isaac Cay Lighthouse, the Bahamas

(images via: Megali.ST, FKA, Tony Arruza Photography and Joyous!))

The Great Isaac Cay Lighthouse was built in 1859 on tiny Great Isaac Cay in the Bahamas. The 152ft-tall tower is surrounded by a small group of decrepit and decaying outbuildings abandoned after the lighthouse’s last two keepers mysteriously vanished in 1969.

(image via: Artificial Owl)

The lighthouse still functions using an automatic lighting mechanism as it is still needed as a navigational aid. That’s just as well – the lighthouse has acquired a reputation for being haunted by the ghosts of shipwrecked ship passengers. It’s said that when the full moon shines, the spectral shades of a mother and child shipwrecked off the island in the late 19th century can be heard bemoaning their fate.

(image via: Michael John Grist)

The first to go were the keepers, made redundant by automated power generators. Next were the lighthouses themselves, relegated to superfluousness when GPS navigation offered ship captains accurate positioning any time of day, whatever the weather. Often built in isolated locations beset by the harshest of environments, these relics of a more romantic age are gradually giving up the ghost, ravaged by the same seas they sought to make safer for sailors. Last one to leave, please shut the door and turn out the light.

Though lighthouses have captured much of the glory when it comes to seacoasts, shorelines and shipwrecks, their usefulness quickly fades when thick mists and pea-soup fogs roll in. At times like these, lighthouses hand the torch to their less glamorous but no less essential aural counterparts: foghorns. And to that we say, “Hear here!”

Shore Sounds Good!

(images via: New-Brunswick.net and Lighthouse Friends)

Foghorns have been sounding off since 1859 when a steam-powered “fog alarm” invented by Robert Foulis began operations on Partridge Island, New Brunswick, Canada. In one form or another, the Partridge Island foghorn (shown above in a watercolor sketch from 1865) continued to sound out a mournful moan to wayward mariners for 139 years, until it was finally switched off on May 4th, 1998.

(images via: SPPS, BSmif and Anchor Brewing)

Robert Foulis supposedly got the idea for a low-frequency fog alarm one misty night while listening to his daughter play the piano. He noticed something curious: the lower notes carried further and sounded louder than the higher notes. Foulis’ first fog alarm not only blasted out loud low tones, it was automated and could be set up to play different coded cadences so that sailors could determine which location they were nearing. Most steam-powered foghorns use coal to heat their boilers. You can see the incoming coal chute (above right) leading down into the boiler building of the Point Reyes foghorn.

Foghorns Of Plenty

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(images via: Terry Pepper, Night Whispers, Kosmix and Wikipedia)

The next technological leap in foghorn design came in the late 1890s when English pipe organ designer Robert Hope-Jones rigged his Wurlitzer organ to produce what he called a “diaphonic” tone. Hope-Jones’ diaphone was further refined by Canadian John Pell Northey, who added a secondary air supply that resulted in the full, rich, two-tone foghorn that remains the benchmark for foghorns over a century later.

Split Rock Music

(images via: MBillings_7, PedalFreak and RSH3339)

Split Rock Lighthouse has been guarding the north shore of Lake Superior southwest of Silver Bay, Minnesota, since 1910. A pair of diaphone foghorns were mounted on a separate building (above). Originally powered by a gasoline engine and an associated air compressor, the foghorns were switched over to electric power in 1940 and sounded their last blast in 1961.

The Sound Of Silence

(images via: Fair Isle and Manx.net)

What could be lonelier than the sound of a foghorn? How about a silenced foghorn, which are becoming more and more common as time passes. The days when ship captains aboard sailing ships becalmed in mist cupped their ears and listened intently for the call of the foghorn are long gone. Today’s ships hum with the throb of diesel engines and captains fix their positions via radar and GPS systems. Mighty foghorns such as the one above, located on the Langness peninsula on the Isle of Man, are left to the mercy of the wind, rain and corrosive salt spray.

(images via: Neepdocker and Manx.net)

Some of the loneliest and at the same time, most scenically spectacular foghorns are located on the Scottish isle of Ailsa Craig. Now uninhabited and a designated bird sanctuary, Ailsa Craig and its huge foghorns have been silent since 1966.

(images via: Wikipedia, NLB and SeaKayakPhoto)

The massive foghorns located on the island’s north and south coasts were supplied with air from now-rusting compressed air tanks, kept full via now-ruined gasworks. Ailsa Craig was extensively quarried for its unique blue-gray granite, used to make curling stones. Blasting is now forbidden but loose rock is still mined to make the famous Scottish “rocks.”

Still Hear

(images via: Racerocks, James Jegers and BBC Radio)

Though not as common as they once were, there is still a need for foghorns in many parts of the world. As well, technology has given foghorns a new lease on life. Equipped with laser generators and computer operating software, modern marvels like the white beauty (above left) from Maine, USA, shine a beam of light into the mist and should the fog reflect back a significant quantity of light, the electric foghorn will sound.

(image via: Biking Birder 2010)

Modern or not, foghorns’ claim to fame remains their loud and penetrating sound designed to be heard and heeded from many miles away. One hopes the gentleman above, at Scotland’s Mull of Galloway lighthouse’s foghorn, has remembered to wear his earplugs.

You’ll Be Mist

(images via: Indospectrum and Excel Math)

Just as the inclement weather they’re designed to warn against relentless batters them, foghorns seem to endure though some have been silent for many decades. Part of this is due to their isolation: their residual scrap value isn’t worth the time and trouble to retrieve them from islands, points and peninsulas.

(images via: Flickr/Splitrock and Fotolibra)

Not that their presence harms anyone or anything – in fact, the evocative nature of foghorns makes them a favored subject for painters and photographers.

(image via: Essex Explorations)

That a man-made device built to emit sound can appeal to our visual and emotional centers is something worth appreciating… even, if I dare say, worth blowing your horn about.

Lighthouse architecture is captivating. Aside from their practical purpose of guiding sailors away from shore lines at night, lighthouses have always occupied a special place in storytelling lore. They may not be lighting the way for sailors and captains anymore, but they still serve as beautiful and captivating landmarks. These seven abandoned and inactive lighthouses represent marine history, and stand as tall, quiet beacons to what was.

Capo d’Otranto Lighthouse

(via UNC)

Located in Italy, this Lighthouse sits at on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Its tall white tower no longer shines light into the seas that surrounds it. If you ask us, nearby sailors are worse off for it! The lighthouse used to mark entrance into the straight of Otranto.

Talacre Lighthouse

(via VirtualTourist)

This beautiful lighthouse is a popular photo spot for beach walkers in North Whales. Holding true to the traditional look of a red-topped lighthouse, lovers of marine architecture are always captivated by its beauty. This particular lighthouse was likely unmanned in the days that its light still shone.

Patuxent Lighthouse

(via Mariner.org)

This lighthouse is eerie yet beautiful, decrepit yet somehow captivating. Its timeless appearance paints a picture of a time long since past, when sailors were guided by its beam. A man must have operated this particular lighthouse, long before the days of automated illuminating. It’s a shame that it is falling apart, its legacy appears to be coming to a close.

Squaw Island Lighthouse

(via Flickr)

This peculiar looking lighthouse is located on Squaw Island, Lake Michigan. Kayakers can visit the tiny island and explore the exterior of this lighthouse, which is no longer in operation. Quite a beautiful home, one must wonder why it was ever abandoned.

Ferryland Head Lighthouse

(via UNC)

This stone-foundation lighthouse located in Canada looks to have been abandoned long ago. Sadly enough, no one seems to have tended to its upkeep. It is a shame, for it is quite beautiful and would likely make an excellent dwelling for those who love lighthouse style homes.

Stokes Bay Range

(via UNC)

Another Canadian lighthouse, this one is located in Ontario. It has an unusual design about it and features two light towers instead of only one. This particular lighthouse appears to have been unmanned in the days of its operation.

Lighthouse Nancy Island

(via Flickr)

This lighthouse is situated on a lakefront, and served as a house for its owner during the days when it was still functional. It is hard to imagine a more soothing and serene place to live. Its white and red colors are typical of lighthouses, and its elegant design makes it a true piece of architectural beauty.

(Check out our complete collection of 70 Amazing Houses from Around the World.)

What is it about lighthouses that captures our attention? Is it the history behind these relics of a less technologically-advanced age? Is it the quaint charm of the towers? Or is it maybe the safety and security that the towers symbolize? Whatever it is that draws us to these beacons, they are among some of the most visited and photographed structures around the world.

(images via: UNC and Lighthouse Friends and Rudy Alice Lighthouse and James Jordan)

The qualities that make a lighthouse beautiful have been debated among lighthouse lovers for longer than anyone can remember. These have been named among the most lovely by folks who make a hobby of spotting lighthouses.

The lighthouse at Okino Gozen Shima sits atop an isolated rock about five miles off of the shore of Jizo Saki. Next to it sits a Shinto shrine, a bit of peace in the middle of the sometimes-dangerous waters.

The Mobile Bay Lighthouse in Alabama proudly stands as a part of the state’s history. It is a great example of a screw-pile lighthouse, and extremely picturesque.

The Cape Hatteras Light no longer stands at the edge of the water; today it is nearly 3,000 feet inland due to erosion. At 208 feet tall, it is the tallest lighthouse in the Western hemisphere, and certainly one of the most photographed in the country.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse has a long and convoluted history, but it still stands as a strong beacon. Once a year the electric lights are changed to kerosene lights, and people come from miles away to see the beautiful lights dance in the dark sky.

(images via: Wikipedia and Classic Vehicles and 7 is 7 and M Bell)

The rich history of lighthouses often fascinates enthusiasts. They are, after all, an ancient technology that has existed for centuries. Now that GPS navigation is making lighthouses less essential, lighthouse lovers are defending the historic buildings and ensuring that nothing happens to them. It would be a shame to lose the Tower of Hercules, which is the oldest Roman lighthouse still in use today, or the Dover Castle Lighthouse, which is one of the best-preserved Roman lighthouses in Europe.

The Kõpu Lighthouse in Estonia is one of the three oldest operational lighthouses in the world, making it a national landmark. The Boston Harbor Lighthouse stands on the site of what was the first lighthouse in what is now America. The original lighthouse, which played a part in the Boston Tea Party, was destroyed in 1776 and the current one built in 1783. It is now the second-oldest working lighthouse in the United States and was the last manned lighthouse in the country.

(images via: Lighthouse Friends and Wikipedia)

Not all notable lighthouses have such a long history. The Charleston Light was built in 1962 and has the distinction of being the last major government-funded manned lighthouse in the country. It is also the only American lighthouse to feature an elevator. These days the Charleston Light is automated. The Capo Branco Lighthouse is a curious-looking structure, but it is in fact a functioning lighthouse in Brazil. Besides guiding ships in the dark, it also marks the easternmost point of South American mainland.

(images via: UNC)

Integral lighthouses are an often-forgotten example of fine American lighthouses. They are, quite literally, houses with a light on top. While most lighthouses featured a nearby house for the keeper to live in, these lighthouses simply combined the two structures. Integral lighthouses were no longer built after the 1850s, but some of them stayed in commission long after that. These quirky pieces of American architecture don’t often get the attention they deserve for their part in lighthouse history.

Amazing Houses 1: Beach and Lake Houses

Amazing Houses 2: Cliff and Mountain Houses

Amazing Houses 3: Condos and Townhomes

Amazing Houses 4: Cheap and Crowded Houses

Amazing Houses 5: Greenhouses and Glass Houses

Amazing Houses 6: Haunted Houses and Hotels

Amazing Houses 7: Lighthouses

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