Florida Keys Lighthouses
The Reef Lighthouses in Florida Keys

The story of the Florida Keys lighthouses and the reef lighthouses in Florida Keys goes back to 1825 in Cape Florida, where a lightship named Aurora Borealis was placed in the Dry Tortugas to mark the north end of the reef.

The following year it was replaced by a lighthouse and the first Key West lighthouse was built. In 1827 Sand Key got it lighthouse

In 1846 a hurricane destroyed the Florida Keys lighthouses in Sand Key and Key West. In 1847 the Key West lighthouse was rebuild.

In 1850 a day marker was placed to mark Looe Key, and in 1852 Lieutenant James Totten of the US Army Coast Survey started a more thorough marking of the dangerous reefs in these waters.

The first marking was done by placing fifteen iron shaft day markers to mark the reefs. The day markers just consisted of an iron pole which was 36 feet high with a large barrel placed on top of it. They were visible for a couple of miles and when using a telescope you could see them from about 10 miles away.

The day markers might have helped, but still in the period between 1848 and 1858 more than 600 ships were lost because of the reefs.

You might wonder how come that so many ships hit the reefs and sunk. Here is an explanation. When the ships was sailing from the Atlantic to the Gulf, the captains did not want to sail against the Gulf Stream (the power of the stream is about 3-4 miles per hour), so the wanted to sail as near to the reefs as possible to save time and fuel.

Clearly there was a huge need for more Florida Keys lighthouses and the reef lighthouses in Florida Keys, and five years after the day markers had been placed in 1857. The lighthouse board would recommend to the Congress, that there be placed iron skeletal lighthouses to replace the day markers, so the reefs could be marked as good as possible. This did not get the necessary approval and the recommendation was put away for a decade because of the civil war.

The lighthouse board again raised the request in 1868. It was repeated in 1869 and then in July 1870 the Congress finally approved it and funded the project.

The Lighthouses warned the passing ships of the hidden underwater dangers of the reefs, but back then there was another danger both to the ships, but also to the people in the lighthouses, which there were only a little or no warning at all - the hurricanes.

In 1939 the Florida Keys lighthouses and the reef lighthouses in Florida Keys were put under the control of the Coast Guard. In 1963 the lighthouses got automated and the guardsmen would leave their homes with ocean view all the way around.

Today there are six active reef lighthouses in Florida Keys at sea, they are:

Fowey Rocks, Carysfort Reef, Alligator Reef, Sombrero Key, American Shoal and Sand Key.