Ship Island Light

Ship Island Light guided traffic at Ship Island, whose deep-water harbor made it not only a military post but also a port of entry, quarantine station, and at times a tourist destination. First built in 1853, the lighthouse was disrupted by the Civil War, when Confederate forces seized the island, removed its lens, and burned the interior before Union forces restored the light in 1862. The original brick tower later became unsafe and collapsed in 1901, after a wooden replacement had been built nearby. That second lighthouse was automated, deactivated, and eventually destroyed by fire in 1972; later replicas proved temporary, and the island’s surviving navigational structure is now a skeletal range light.

Mississippi · United States