Billingsgate Island Light stood at the entrance to Wellfleet Harbor on Cape Cod, on an island that was once a settled fishing community but is now mostly submerged at high tide. Built in 1822 and operating from 1858, the forty-one-foot brick lighthouse had an unusual square tower, used kerosene and a Fresnel lens, and helped guide fishermen and other mariners. Billingsgate Island once held more than thirty houses, a school, and a baseball team, but worsening erosion and failed sea walls left it vulnerable. In the great storm of 1915, the lighthouse and town were destroyed, and only the granite foundation remains.