Maine - Cape Neddick Lighthouse

The Cape Neddick Lighthouse is located at York, ME. Its beginning started in 1807 with repeated requests being ignored for several decades to build a lighthouse atop "the Nubble;" a few hundred feet offshore from the eastern end of Cape Neddick. Finally, in 1874 a forty-one foot cast-iron tower was authorized by President Rutherford B. Hayes, and the light station was placed in operation in 1879.

Nubble Light, as the lighthouse is more popularly called, is a cast-iron structure lined inside with brick. After completion the tower was painted red, but since 1902 it has been painted white. The distinctive red oil house was built in 1902, and the covered walkway connecting the keeper's house and tower were added in 1911. The light station originally had a fog horn bell and bell tower. This structure was razed in 1961. An 1891 fourth-order lens was still in use at the time of my visit, although it was not the original lens installed. A bucket suspended on a line across the channel was used to transport supplies to the station. The conical tower measures thirty-nine feet from the ground level to the center of the lantern, which shows a red light eighty-eight feet above the ocean. The last keeper left here in 1987 when the light was automated.

At the time of my visit in 1997, the station was maintained by the town of York and had received more than three-hundred offers from people desiring to be live-in caretakers. Some restoration work had been done with a 1989 grant from the Maine Historic Preservation Committee.

This lighthouse and grounds are among the most appealing and photographed in the world, with an estimated 250,000 visitors annually. In 1977 NASA sent Voyager II into space with several items aboard that were designed to teach extraterrestrial civilizations about our planet. A picture of "Nubble Light" was among the images included.