Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina (September 2008)
The lighthouse on Sullivan’s Island (map) is an oddity. It doesn’t look like any other lighthouse that I’ve ever seen before or since. Sure it’s a towering structure and it throws light far out to sea, but its appearance is downright strange. Most noticeably the tower takes a triangular shape like an upended Toblerone box instead of the more typical cylinder or tapered cone. This unusual shape allows it to withstand gales and hurricanes in a more aerodynamic manner, and hopefully survive when other structures might fail. No masonry was involved in its construction either. Rater, concrete and steel for its core, clad in an aluminum skin.
A New Arrival
With these feature considered, one might conclude that the Sullivan’s Island Lighthouse first graced the shoreline fairly recently, and that would be correct. The tower, initially lit in 1962, became the last major lighthouse built by the United States government. It rises 140 feet on its own with a focal plane of 163 feet when factoring in surrounding terrain. Also, because of the recent construction it never had a Fresnel lens. It went straight to modern optics.
The older building in the foreground is a lifesaving station built in 1898. Lighthouse staff lived here until full automation in 1975. Eventually the entire property tranferred from the U.S. Coast Guard to the National Park Service, although the Coast Guard continues to maintain the actual light. The property is not generally open to the public, and in fact there were a bunch of government No Trespassing signs all around. People can freely walk the perimeter though, and snap as many photos as they like, which we did in abundance.
Unusual Features
Even the lantern room looks different. Yes, that’s an air conditioning vent below the top set of windows. How many lighthouse keepers enjoyed the luxury of air conditioning in those older structures? Also notice the various electronics, satellite dishes and microwave relays crowning the tower. Items such as these would seem inappropriate on an antique structure but they look perfectly benign atop the Sullivan’s Island lighthouse. Another unusual feature of this tower is the elevator that was installed as part of the original design that whisked tenders up from ground level. Again, something not seen regularly on a lighthouse.
Continuing Relevance
This is the view of the Sullivan’s Island Lighthouse from the middle of Charleston Harbor at Fort Sumter. To me it looked more like an air traffic control tower than a lighthouse. It’s not hard to imagine a runway down there, but indeed it’s solely a lighthouse.
One cannot underestimate the importance of it either. Charleston is one of the busiest container ports in the southeastern United States. All traffic must traverse the narrow shipping channel between Sullivan’s Island and Fort Sumter. Getting a proper fix on the channel is vital to these large cargo ships, and the lighthouse provides a complement or backup to shipboard navigational tools.
Readers who have an interest in lighthouses might also want to check my Lighthouse Index page.
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