St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum

 The St. Augustine Lighthouse and Keeper's House serve as both a scenic attraction and a maritime museum. Still an active aid to navigation on the North Florida coast, the Lighthouse and Maritime Museum is a private, non-profit museum dedicated to its mission "to preserve, present, and keep alive the stories of the Nation's Oldest Port as symbolized by our working St. Augustine Lighthouse."

Standing 165 feet above sea level, the Lighthouse overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and Matanzas Bay from Anastasia Island. Visitors can climb the 219 steps to the top of the Lighthouse for an incredible view of the city of St. Augustine and the ocean.

You'll have the opportunity to experience life at a Light Station through the exhibits at the Keeper's House, stroll through the grounds, check out the gift shop, or take a "Behind the Scenes" guided tour, included with admission.

"Behind the Scenes" tours are offered on the hour from 11am to 3pm every day. It showcases the important role the Light Station has played in St. Augustine's history, and provides a look at the research and preservation going on at the newly opened Maritime Archaeology and Education Center. The Museum itself is an American Alliance of Museums accredited institution, and a Smithsonian Affiiliate.

Additional specialty tours are offered, including the "Dark of the Moon" guided paranormal tour, the Lens Room Tour, and the Sunset/Moonrise dinner and drinks experience at the top of the lighthouse. Additional information and the opportunity to make reservations for any of the specialty tours is available on their website.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse has a long and storied history, beginning in the late 1500s when it was a simply a wooden watchtower used to protect the Spanish settlement from invaders and to direct Spanish ships and traders to their port. The simple flame atop the wooden tower was too weak to effectively signal ships, and served more as an accompaniment to the soldier on watch.

This first watchtower was burned to the ground by Sir Francis Drake during an attack in 1586.

It was nearly 100 years later, in 1683, when a coquina tower was build on the site from the ruins of a stone chapel. This first lighthouse, shown here, lasted 200 years until shoreline erosion caused it to fall into the sea in 1880. Due to the erosion, the current tower was built further inland in 1874, six years before the first tower fell.

The current Lighthouse is St. Augustine's oldest surviving brick structure. The Keeper's House that sits next to it was built in 1876 to provide living quarters for the families of those who kept watch, and now serves as the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum.

During World War II, the men and women of the Coast Guard trained in St. Augustine, and used the Lighthouse as a lookout post for enemy ships and submarines that frequented the coast.

After the war, during the 1960s, the Keeper's House was rented out to local residents, as there was no longer any need for a keeper to live on the grounds since the Lighthouse was fully electric and automated.

Over the decades following WWII, the Lighthouse unfortunately fell into disrepair, and in 1970 a fire nearly completely destroyed the Keeper's House.

In 1981, after years of neglect and vandalism, the Junior Service League of St. Augustine had the Lighthouse listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. They worked tirelessly to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, financing a restoration effort that brought the Lighthouse and Keeper's House back to their former glory.

During its years of closure, the light continued to shine through the night, and after 14 years and $1.2 million toward restoration, including restoration of the original Fresnel lens, the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum is an impeccably beautiful example of Florida's maritime history.

Of course no story about such an historic location in St. Augustine would be complete without a ghost story or two, and the Lighthouse is no exception:

~ Peter Rasmussen, one of the first lighthouse keepers, was known for his love of cigars, and over the years, the smell of cigars has been detected by many staff members and guests.

~ Some claim to have seen and heard keeper Joseph Andreu at the top of the tower, the place where he fell to his death while painting the outside of the tower.

~ Perhaps the most well known ghosts of the Lighthouse were two young sisters who died on the property. Their father was hired to renovate the tower in the late 1800s. The girls were playing in a cart used to bring materials back and forth to the Lighthouse. When it broke loose, they weren't able to jump free in time and the cart slid quickly into the bay, plummeting both girls to a watery death. Since then, the girls can be heard laughing late at night, and some claim to have seen one of the girls wearing the same blue dress she died in.

~ Staff members often say they lock the door at the top of the tower each night before leaving, only to find it open when they arrive in the morning for work.

~ Staff also report chairs having been moved or overturned, as well as items from the gift shop being moved or missing only to reappear later.

~ Music boxes have been known to turn on by themselves.

There's so much more history to the Lighthouse than I've included here to be learned from a visit and tour. We personally love the paranormal tours, and though many of the "ghost tours" in St. Augustine are kid-friendly, the Museum recommends that for this particular paranormal experience, children under the age of 13 should not participate. 

Regardless which tour you choose, you should definitely check out this historic landmark while you're in the Old City.

St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum

100 Red Cox Drive

St. Augustine, FL  32080

904-829-0745