Cape St. George Light, a brick lighthouse on St. George Island, guided ships into Apalachicola Bay, an important 19th-century cotton port. First built in 1833 and relocated in 1847–48 for better visibility, an inadequately founded tower was destroyed by storms in 1850 and 1851. A stronger lighthouse built in 1851–52 served with a third-order Fresnel lens visible up to 15 nautical miles offshore, though it went dark during the Civil War and later saw technological upgrades before decommissioning in 1994. After hurricanes damaged and ultimately collapsed it in 2005, volunteers and public funding salvaged part of the original brickwork and rebuilt the lighthouse inland, reopening it in 2008.