Montauk Lighthouse was authorized to be constructed by President George Washington in 1795 and completed in 1797 at a cost of $22,300.00. When the light was completed, it stood some three hundred feet from the edge of the cliff. The sandstone tower is 28 feet in diameter, octagonal in shape, and 80 feet to the lantern. Sperm oil was used to light the lantern until the 1860's, after that kerosene was used until the 1940's, when an electric lamp of 300,000 candle power was installed. The light is a ten second flash with a range of nineteen miles in clear weather and four miles in foggy weather.
