Lighthouses that Lean

Show me the way to go home
I'm tired and I want to go to bed
I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it's gone right to my head
Everywhere I roam
Over land or sea or foam
You can always hear me singing this song
Show me the way to go home.

Show me the way to go home
I'm tired and I want to go to bed
I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it's gone right to my head
Everywhere that I roam
Over land or sea or foam
You can always hear me singing this song
Show me the way to go home.

A couple of guys on a train in 1925, who had a few too many drinks, wrote those lyrics. Today, as I looked at an archival picture in my collection of Rockland Lake Lighthouse on the Hudson River, I found myself singing this song. The lighthouse looked as if it had "a few too many" too...a few too many erosive encounters with the river currents.

The cast iron "sparkplug-style" lighthouse was built in 1894 on an oyster bed. Beneath the oyster bed was mud that soon gave way and caused the lighthouse to settle out of plumb. It began to cant almost immediately after it went into service and continued until it developed a severe list. It was dismantled in 1924 and replaced by a skeleton tower. What's tough to imagine is living in this tower with its leaning floors!

It turns out there are a number of leaning lighthouses. Usually, the cause is a faulty foundation or damage from a catastrophic event like a storm or earthquake or flood. Check out some of the world's leaning lighthouses!

This is the old Buffalo Harbor Lighthouse that developed a list after it was hit by the ship Frontenac. The caisson supporting it was pushed askew. The black object protruding from the tower is the foghorn.

This is the Kiipsaar Lighthouse in Estonia. Storms have taken a toll on it, and ice too. The Baltic Sea freezes here, and it has crept closer and closer to the lighthouse. A skinny tower that lacks a low center of gravity is vulnerable to undermining. In 2010, the Estonian government did some work to right it, but erosion eventually will have its way. This image is from 2008 and is from www.7is7.com.

 This cute little lighthouse in Landis Creek at Limerick, Pennsylvania has seen better days. The river current has pushed it over. (Footnote: I lived in this area during the 1960s and attended high school with a girl named Wendy Landis. Her parents owned the local burger joint and made the best Philly steaks around! Hmmm...I wonder....)

Abramovskiy Lighthouse in Russia has suffered from sand erosion around its base. This image appears on my friend Russ Rowlett's "Lighthouse Directory" website.

www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/

Sharps Island Lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay has been leaning for years. Its caisson has been slammed by ice floes and undermined. Interestingly, three lighthouses have stood here. It's a rough spot south of Tighlman Island. An earlier lighthouse, a screwpile design with its legs screwed into the bay floor, was sheared off its foundation by floating ice and set adrift like a derelict ship. The two keepers aboard the lighthouse remained with it until it ran aground on shore. Dutifully, they removed as many tools and pieces of equipment as possible before the lighthouse sank. The lighthouse pictured above was declared surplus by the Coast Guard and auctioned off to a private owner in 2008 for $80,000. I wonder what the owner plans to do with a leaning lighthouse.

Florida's Cape St. George Lighthouse was undermined by the sea after its shoreline disappeared inch by inch in Gulf Coast hurricanes. It ultimately toppled in a storm. The good news: It was rebuilt, using some of its original blocks, a safe distance back from the sea. Photo from the Florida State Archives.

Lake St. Clair, Michigan has the South Channel Range Lights that help vessels line up to safely enter the channel. One is leaning badly. "Save our South Channel Lights" is a nonprofit group, also known as SOS, endeavoring to save these two towers. The picture is courtesy of www.boatnerd.com. 

The resort area of Puerto Morelos, Yucatan, Mexico has two lighthouses, one of them leaning at a frightful angle. The photo is by www.beachcomberpete.com. Traveler Pete Hagemann says of Puerto Morelos: "One popular attraction is the Lighthouse. The Lighthouse was damaged by Hurricane Beulah in 1967. The Lighthouse has been struck twice more since then. First by Hurricane Gilbert in 1987 and again in 2005 by Hurricane Wilma. Miraculously, the Lighthouse is still standing. A new lighthouse is being constructed next to the original lighthouse."

And then, sometimes, a lighthouse leans because the photographer makes it so. Professional photographer Laurent J. Frigault fools the eyes with this leaning lighthouse. Those guy-wires appear to be holding it down, as if it might float away otherwise! He didn't identify it. Anyone know where it is? I'm guessing Canada.

If you have pictures of leaning lighthouses, I'd love to see them!

lightkeeper0803@gmail.com