Top 10 Lighthouses in Florida
Florida's Light Towers
Florida is surrounded on three sides by water, and the hazards of its coasts vary sharply by region. The Atlantic shore faces the Gulf Stream, which pushes north in a fast, warm current close to a reef-strewn coast that destroyed hundreds of ships in the age of sail. The Keys extend southwest from the peninsula in a curving chain of coral islands, with the Florida Reef — the only living coral barrier reef in the contiguous United States — running alongside the shipping channel to New Orleans and beyond. The Gulf of Mexico coast is low, sandy and subject to hurricanes. These different challenges produced different lighthouse types: tall first-order towers of brick and granite on the Atlantic shore, iron pile structures suited to soft Gulf-coast substrates, and the extraordinary iron-framed offshore towers on the reef. Many of Florida's lighthouses are among the most historically significant in the United States, and the state has an active lighthouse preservation movement.
1. St. Augustine Lighthouse, St. Augustine
The St. Augustine Lighthouse is the oldest surviving lighthouse site in the United States: a wooden watchtower stood on Anastasia Island from the early Spanish colonial period, and the current lighthouse, completed in 1874 and designed by Paul Pelz of the Army Corps of Engineers, is the third structure on the site. The tower is a first-order brick structure 165 feet (50 metres) tall, painted with distinctive black-and-white spiral stripes that serve as its daymark. The light character is alternating white and red groups, visible at 19 nautical miles, marking the St. Augustine Inlet and the Matanzas River approaches. The lighthouse was automated in 1955. The St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum, which operates the site, maintains one of the most active lighthouse education and maritime archaeology programmes in the country. The tower is open for climbing year-round, and the keeper's dwelling houses museum galleries.
2. Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse, Ponce Inlet
At 175 feet (53 metres), the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in Florida and one of the tallest brick lighthouses in the United States. It was completed in 1887, designed by the head of the Lighthouse Board's engineering section, and replaced an earlier tower that had never been properly completed. The red brick tower, tapering from a broad base, carries a first-order Fresnel lens — one of the finest surviving examples in the country — that gives the light its range of 17 nautical miles. The character is a white flash every ten seconds. The lighthouse marks the Ponce Inlet entrance south of Daytona Beach and guided the fishing fleets and coasting trade for a century before automation in 1970. The Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse Preservation Association has restored all five of the original keeper's buildings; the site is one of the most completely preserved lighthouse compounds in the southeastern United States and is open daily.
3. Key West Lighthouse, Key West
The Key West Lighthouse was first established in 1825, the same year Florida became a US territory, reflecting the immediate importance of the trade routes through the Florida Straits. The current tower was rebuilt after hurricane damage in 1848 and raised to its present height of 86 feet (26 metres) in 1894. The light marked the harbour entrance to Key West, which in the nineteenth century was the wealthiest city per capita in the United States due to the salvage industry that worked the Florida Reef. The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1969 when the range of its light became inadequate for modern navigation. The Key West Art and Historical Society now operates it as a museum; the keeper's quarters house exhibits on lighthouse history and the maritime culture of the Keys. The tower is open for climbing and offers views across the island's historic district.
4. Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, Jupiter
The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, completed in 1860, is a first-order brick tower 108 feet (33 metres) tall, painted red and visible for 20 nautical miles. It marks the entrance to the Loxahatchee River and the Indian River Lagoon at Jupiter Inlet on the northern Palm Beach coast. Its construction was managed by Army Lieutenant George Meade, who later commanded the Union forces at Gettysburg. The lighthouse survived the Civil War — Confederate sympathisers removed its clockwork mechanism to prevent it from aiding Union ships — and was restored to service in 1866. The Loxahatchee River Historical Society maintains a museum in the keeper's complex, and the lighthouse is open for tours. The first-order Fresnel lens, a Barbier and Fenestre product installed in 1928, remains in service, making Jupiter one of the few Florida lighthouses where the original Fresnel optic is still the operational light.
5. Cape Florida Lighthouse, Key Biscayne
The Cape Florida Lighthouse, on the southern tip of Key Biscayne, is the oldest surviving building in Miami-Dade County, first lit in 1825. The brick tower was attacked in 1836 during the Second Seminole War — the keeper and his assistant took refuge in the tower as Seminole warriors set fire to the wooden stairs, nearly killing both men. The tower was badly damaged and rebuilt in 1846, extended to its current height of 95 feet (29 metres) in 1855, and finally deactivated in 1878 when the Fowey Rocks offshore lighthouse took over its function. The lighthouse is now part of Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park and is open for guided tours on weekdays. The setting on the southern tip of Key Biscayne, with Biscayne Bay on one side and the Atlantic on the other, is one of the most beautiful of any Florida lighthouse.
6. St. Marks Lighthouse, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge
The St. Marks Lighthouse stands at the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers where they enter Apalachee Bay on the Gulf Coast — one of the most complete and serene lighthouse settings in Florida. The current tower, completed in 1842, is a solid white masonry structure 73 feet (22 metres) tall that has been rebuilt and modified several times since the original 1830 structure. The light character is a white flash every four seconds visible at 13 nautical miles, guiding fishing and commercial traffic through the shallow bay. The lighthouse is within the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, which protects extensive Gulf Coast wetlands, and the light station compound retains its original low outbuildings and oil house. The site is open during refuge hours; the tower is not climbable but the keeper's quarters provide close inspection of the architecture. The refuge is famous for monarch butterfly migration in autumn.
7. Pensacola Lighthouse, Pensacola
The Pensacola Lighthouse, completed in 1859 on a Naval Air Station, is a 150-foot (46-metre) brick tower with a first-order Fresnel lens that gives it a nominal range of 17 nautical miles. It marks the entrance to Pensacola Bay, one of the finest natural harbours on the Gulf Coast and the site of what may have been the first European settlement in the continental United States. The lighthouse is maintained by the Pensacola Lighthouse Association in cooperation with the US Navy; it is open for tours on weekends. The keeper's quarters function as a museum, and the setting within the Naval Air Station, with access by controlled entry, gives the lighthouse an unusual context. The tower's striking black-and-white daymark bands make it one of the most recognisable lighthouses on the Florida Panhandle coast.
8. Sanibel Lighthouse, Sanibel Island
The Sanibel Lighthouse, built in 1884, stands at the eastern end of Sanibel Island — the island celebrated for its shelling beaches — where it marks the Charlotte Harbor and San Carlos Bay approaches from the Gulf of Mexico. The tower is a skeleton iron structure of the screwpile type adapted for Gulf-coast conditions, 98 feet (30 metres) tall, with the keeper's quarters elevated on the same iron-pile platform. This construction style, developed by the US Lighthouse Board in the 1870s for Gulf-coast and southern waters, was designed for substrates too soft for conventional masonry foundations. The light character is a white flash every six seconds visible at 13 nautical miles. The lighthouse was deactivated in 1949 and the site is now part of Lighthouse Beach, a Sanibel city park. The tower and associated buildings are open to visitors and the beach beneath is one of the most visited on the island.
9. Fowey Rocks Lighthouse, Miami
Fowey Rocks stands on the Florida Reef about 8 kilometres off Key Biscayne, one of the screwpile offshore towers that replaced the Cape Florida Lighthouse in 1878. It is an octagonal iron structure on eight iron piles driven into the reef, 112 feet (34 metres) tall, its living quarters and lantern all elevated above the sea on the iron framework. The light character is a white flash every ten seconds visible at 15 nautical miles. Fowey Rocks was automated in 1974. The offshore reef towers of the Florida Keys — Fowey, Carysfort, Alligator, Sombrero, Sand Key, American Shoal — represent the most ambitious and technically challenging lighthouse construction programme in United States history, extending lighthouses onto a submerged coral reef where no conventional foundations were possible. Fowey Rocks is visible from charter boats out of Miami and Key Biscayne and is a landmark for divers on the offshore reef.
10. Carysfort Reef Lighthouse, Key Largo
Carysfort Reef Lighthouse, completed in 1852, was the first of the Florida Reef screwpile towers to be completed and set the design pattern for those that followed. It stands 100 feet (30 metres) above the reef, an octagonal iron structure on an iron-pile framework, and was designed by engineer I.W.P. Lewis under the direction of the US Lighthouse Board. The light character is a white flash with a red sector covering the shoal east of the reef, visible at 15 nautical miles. Named after HMS Carysfort, a British warship that grounded on the reef in 1770, the lighthouse marks one of the most dangerous sections of the Florida Keys reef for northbound ships in the Straits of Florida. It was automated in 1960 and is not accessible to the public, but is a familiar landmark for divers and snorkellers visiting the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park nearby.
Visiting Florida's Lighthouses
Florida's lighthouse touring is best divided by coast: the Atlantic shore from Fernandina Beach south to the Keys, and the Gulf coast from Pensacola to the Cape Sable area. The St. Augustine, Ponce de Leon Inlet and Jupiter lighthouses are all fully open museums with climbable towers. The Cape Florida and Sanibel sites are excellent park-based visits. The offshore reef towers require charter boat access. Hurricane season (June to November) affects coastal access and boat operations, particularly in the Keys; autumn and winter months offer the most reliable conditions. For the complete picture of Florida's navigational lights, from the Panhandle to the Dry Tortugas, Open the map and explore the network interactively.