The Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse sits between Fort Lauderdale
and Boca Raton, FL at Hillsboro Inlet. Although not built
until 1907, requests were made as far back as
1851 to have a lighthouse built at Hillsboro Inlet. The
Lighthouse Board decided not to build a new structure, but instead acquired a
steel skeleton tower which had been displayed at the 1904 Great St. Louis
Exposition. The tower was disassembled and transported to Hillsboro Inlet
where workers erected it alongside three wood-framed houses built for the
keeper and his assistants.
The completed lighthouse is a 137-foot tall pyramidal
structure. Its lower framework was painted white and the entire upper portion
black. A central spiral stairway rises 175 steps from ground level to the watch
room just beneath the lantern room. The lantern room was equipped with a
second-order Fresnel Lens with light provided from a kerosene lamp. In 1932, the
light was electrified.
In 1974, the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse was automated.
Later, the keepers' quarters, except for the head keepers which was destroyed
in a 1947 hurricane, were converted to vacation retreats for senior military
personnel.
Due to requests from local civic groups, the Coast Guard, in 1999,
reversed a previous decision to have the Fresnel lens removed and placed in a
museum. Instead, a historic relighting of the original second-order Fresnel
lens was celebrated.
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