Highland Light
| Highland Light | ||
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| Place: | North Truro , Massachusetts | |
| Location: | east of SR 6, North Truro | |
| Geographical location: | 42 ° 2 '22.3 " N , 70 ° 3' 39.4" W | |
| Fire carrier height : | 66 ft (20.1 m ) | |
| Fire height : | 170 ft (51.8 m ) | |
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| Scope knows: | 17.8 nm (33 km ) | |
| Optics: | VRB-25 | |
| Operating mode: | electric | |
| Function: | lighthouse | |
| Operating time: | in this construction since 1857 | |
| International ordinal number: | J0390 | |
The Highland Light (also known as Cape Cod Light ) is a lighthouse on Cape Cod National Seashore in North Truro in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . It is the oldest and tallest lighthouse on Cape Cod . The site is open to visitors all year round, but the lighthouse itself is only open from May to October. The structure owned by the National Park Service is operated by the Highland Museum and Lighthouse, Inc. The United States Coast Guard is responsible for the beacon from a technical perspective. The ship Highland Light of the United States Navy named after the tower. It was entered in 1987 under the Multiple Property Submission Lighthouses of Massachusetts MPS on the National Register of Historic Places under the designation Highland Light Station . The lighthouse is also the Contributing Property of the Truro Highlands Historic District .
history
In 1797, George Washington commissioned the construction of a lighthouse at this location to warn ships of the dangerous waters along the coast between Cape Ann and Nantucket . The Highland Light was the first lighthouse on Cape Cod. In 1833 the original wooden structure was replaced by a building made of bricks and in 1840 it was equipped with a new beacon consisting of 15 Argand lamps within several concave reflectors and a light intensity of 182,000 candles exhibited. The lamp used around 800 gallons (about 3000 liters) of oil per year. The oil used was a little under a dollar a gallon , without going into the exact type of oil used.
In 1857 the lighthouse was demolished due to its dilapidation and replaced by the tower that is still in operation today. A first-order Fresnel lens manufactured in Paris was used as a beacon . Together with the tower, a house for the keeper and a generator shed were built, which still exist today.
In 1932 the beacon was replaced by a 1000 watt DCB-224 optic from Carlisle & Finch . This had a complete second lighting unit as a reserve system. Parts of this lens, which was largely destroyed when the optics were replaced in 1998, are now on display in the museum. Since then, a VRB-25 optical system with six flat lenses has been in use.
The original location was 450 feet (140 meters) to the east. Because of the ongoing erosion of the coastline, there was a risk that the tower could fall into the sea. Therefore, in July 1996, the entire building complex was moved inland to the Highland Golf Course within 18 days.
photos
Highland Light by Charles Webster Hawthorne about 1920, Brooklyn Museum.
Highland Light
Image from 1959 in the Historic American Buildings Survey Collection, Library of Congress
The original location is indicated by the stone in the foreground.
Today's beacon VRB-25
,_keepers_house_and_lighthouse.jpg)
See also
literature
- Henry David Thoreau : The Highland Light . In: Cape Cod . Ticknor and Fields, Boston 1865, pp. 138-182 ( Wikisource , English)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b E. A. Connally: Highland Lighthouse (PDF) Library of Congress. Retrieved October 11, 2014.
- ↑ capecodlight.org ( Memento of December 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ National Register Information System . In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . Retrieved March 13, 2009.
- ^ Henry David Thoreau in The Atlantic Monthly 1864, Volume 14, Issue 86, pp. 484-495.
- ^ Lighthouses of the United States: Southeastern Massachusetts . September 7, 2009. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
