Fuller Rock Light stood beside the Providence River channel in Providence, Rhode Island, where increasing nineteenth-century shipping created a need for better guidance into port. Funded in 1870 as one of three local lights, it was built as a simple short wooden tower on a granite pier, with no dwelling, forcing its keeper to live ashore and reach it by boat. The light suffered early decay, repeated repairs, and persistent staffing problems. Automated in 1918 as an acetylene beacon, it was destroyed in a 1923 tank explosion that injured five men. A skeleton tower, and later a shorter 1997 replacement, continued the light from the same site.