Cape Lookout Lighthouse

Cape Lookout Lighthouse guards a dangerous section of North Carolina’s southern Outer Banks near Lookout Shoals. The current 163-foot brick tower, completed in 1859, replaced an inadequate earlier lighthouse finished in 1812. Its powerful light, unusual daytime operation, and first-order Fresnel lens improved warning for ships along the treacherous coast. During the Civil War, its lens was removed, later replaced, and the tower survived a failed Confederate attempt to destroy it in 1864. In 1873 it gained its distinctive black-and-white diamond daymark, unique in the United States. Automated in 1950, it is now part of Cape Lookout National Seashore.

North Carolina · United States