Fowey Rocks Light is located seven miles southeast of Cape Florida on Key Biscayne.[2][3][4] The lighthouse was completed in 1878, replacing the Cape Florida Light. It was automated on May 7, 1975, and as of 2021[update] is still in operation.[5] The structure is cast iron, with a screw-pile foundation, a platform and a skeletal tower. The light is 110 feet above the water. The tower framework is painted brown, while the dwelling and enclosed circular stair to the lantern is painted white. The original lens was a first-order drum Fresnel lens which stood about 12 feet (4 m) high and weighed about a ton (tonne). The light has a nominal range of 15 miles in the white sectors, and 10 miles in the red sectors. It serves as a maker for the entrance to the Hawk Channel passage through the Florida Keys.[6]
Fowey Rocks Lighthouse, U.S. Coast Guard Archive
Fowey Rocks are named after the Royal Navy frigate HMS Fowey which was wrecked on a different reef to the south in 1748.[7] During construction of the lighthouse the workers lived on a platform built over the water to minimize the danger of transporting them and their supplies each day from the mainland.
While construction was under way, on 17 February 1878 the Arratoon Apcar ran aground on the reef.
The 1500 ton steamship came to rest just 200 yards (180 m) from the workmen's platform.[8]
Efforts to save the boat failed, and she was pounded apart on the rocks and sank.
Today the wreck is an excellent scuba diving site.[9] One early assistant keeper of the lighthouse, Jefferson B. Browne, later became Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court.[10]
In June 2011, the General Services Administration made the Fowey Rocks Light (along with 11 others) available at no cost to public organizations willing to preserve them.[11][12] On October 2, 2012, the National Park Service accepted ownership of the light.[13]
It is the last of the original Florida Keys offshore manned reef lights in operation, all others having been decommissioned by 2015.[14][15] The original Fresnel lens has been replaced by a modern solar-powered light. Although owned by the National Park Service, the light continues to be maintained by the US Coast Guard.[16]
^"Fowey Rocks Lighthouse". National Park Service - Biscayne National Park. June 10, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2022.
^State Library, The Bavarian (1897). List of beacons, buoys, and day-marks, in the Seventh Light-House District, embracing the coast of Florida, from Jupiter Inlet to Perdido River ; together with all the adjacent islands, keys, and reefs (Digitized ed.). U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 7–17.
^The Coast Guard History site, cited above, says she was a Spanish Galleon, but there is substantial documentation of her Royal Navy status.
Dean, Love (1982). Reef Lights: Seaswept Lighthouses of the Florida Keys. Key West, Florida: The Historic Key West Preservation Board. ISBN0-943528-03-8.
