NC Coast & Beaches

Bodie Island Lighthouse Opens For Tours

Visitors to the North Carolina coast will have two new lighthouses to tour this spring.

Bodie Island Lighthouse opened for regular tours for the first time April 19. The newly restored lighthouse, its first-order Fresnel lens cleaned down to the shine, now is the sixth along the state's 320-mile coastline to allow visitors a top-of-the-tower view.

Also expected to open for tours this spring: the restored 1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse in Edenton. The 2-story structure, the only remaining screw-pile lighthouse built on North Carolina's sounds and rivers, opens during the Colonial capital's 300th anniversary celebration.

Bodie Island Lighthouse
The Bodie (pronounced "body") Island Lighthouse, built in 1872 and day-marked with broad black and white bands, sits on the Roanoke Sound south of Nags Head. Before being deemed ready for visitors, it underwent a major overhaul from the marble and slate on the bottom floor to the metal features around the gallery and lantern decks. The Fresnel lens's 344 glass prisms were removed for cleaning and the optical panels from its 12-foot framework polished.

The view from the top of the Bodie Island Lighthouse offers a rare view of the panorama of the ocean and the sound that few people other than the lighthouse keepers have seen. In addition, it features a first-order Fresnel lens, the largest of these revolutionary 19th-century lenses, which use a complex system of hand-cut prisms to cast light 20 miles out to sea. Only about 15 US lighthouses - including Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla - are equipped with first-order Fresnels. Others, such as the storied lens from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, are prized by maritime museums.

The Bodie Island Lighthouse is one of only a dozen surviving "tall brick tower type" lighthouses in the United States. (Three more in North Carolina - Currituck Beach Lighthouse, Cape Lookout Lighthouse and Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the nation's tallest - also fall into the category, which specifies a minimum height of 150 feet.)

The restoration of the Bodie Island Lighthouse adds another chapter to a dramatic history. Shoddy construction set the original 1847 lighthouse canting to the east. The tower was replaced in 1859, just in time for the Civil War. Confederate troops, retreating from the war's first amphibious operation, blew up the lighthouse so that the victorious Union forces couldn't use it.

After the war, a new lighthouse was constructed on a 15-acre tract between tall pines and freshwater marsh. Less than three weeks after its opening Oct. 1, 1872, a flock of geese crashed into the lantern and damaged the lens. The lighthouse's lot improved under the management of the National Park Service, which eventually turned the keepers' cottage into a visitor center and gave people a glimpse inside the tower.

Until now, public access to the gallery has been limited to one weekend in 1988 during the US Lighthouse Service's bicentennial. Before climbers could be permitted to spiral their way to the top on a regular basis, restoration was needed. Work began in 2010 but was halted when crews found structural deficiencies that weren't covered by the budget. Funds became available the next fiscal year, and the project was finally completed.

Roanoke River Lighthouse
In Edenton, the Roanoke River Lighthouse also has a rich history. Originally located across the Albemarle Sound at the mouth of the Roanoke River near Plymouth, it was one of 15 screw-pile lighthouses in North Carolina. Decommissioned in 1941, the lighthouse was eventually brought to Edenton and used as a private residence.

The Edenton Historical Commission acquired the lighthouse in 2007. Restored, refurbished and relocated to Edenton Bay, the lighthouse again sits atop pilings over the water and is expected to open for tours this spring.

added: April 19, 2013

updated: April 19, 2013