Middle Bay Light

Middle Bay Light

Middle Bay Light in Mobile Bay, near Mobile, Alabama.
Location	Mobile Harbor, Mobile Bay, Alabama
Coordinates	30°26′17.60″N 88°0′40.48″W / 30.438222°N 88.0112444°W / 30.438222; -88.0112444
Year first constructed	1885
Year first lit	1885
Automated	1935
Deactivated	1967
Foundation	Screw piling with platform
Construction	Wood
Tower shape	Hexagonal
Height	41 feet
Original lens	Fourth order Fresnel lens, 1885
Characteristic	Fixed white varied by a red flash every 30 seconds, bell struck by machinery every 5 seconds.

Middle Bay Light
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Middle Bay Light circa 1940.
Location:	Middle of Mobile Bay, Mobile Bay, Alabama
Coordinates:	30°26′10″N 88°1′5″W / 30.43611°N 88.01806°W / 30.43611; -88.01806Coordinates: 30°26′10″N 88°1′5″W / 30.43611°N 88.01806°W / 30.43611; -88.01806
Built:	1885
Architect:	Unknown
Governing body:	COAST GUARD
NRHP Reference#:	74000429[1]
Added to NRHP:	December 30, 1974

Middle Bay Light, also known as Middle Bay Lighthouse and Mobile Bay Lighthouse, is a hexagonal-shaped screw-pile lighthouse offshore from Mobile, Alabama, in the center of Mobile Bay.

History

The station was activated in 1885. In 1916 the keeper's wife gave birth to a baby that summer at the station. According to the Alabama Lighthouse Association web site, the keeper brought a dairy cow to the station and corralled it on a section of the lower deck because his wife was unable to nurse the newborn baby. All had to be evacuated when the station survived but was damaged by a hurricane that year. The light was automated in 1935.

Middle Bay Light was deactivated in 1967. The lighthouse was placed on National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1974.^[1] In 1984 the lighthouse was stabilized by Middle Bay Light Centennial Commission in preparation for the centennial celebration. In 1996 the Coast Guard loaned the original Fresnel lens to the Ft. Morgan Museum for public display. In 2002 restoration efforts were begun to repair the lighthouse.

Fresnel lens

Main article: Fresnel lens

The Fresnel Lens was named for Augustin Jean Fresnel, a French physicist who, in 1828, demonstrated the wave theory of light and changed the entire world's lighthouse illumination to the Fresnel System. The Fresnel lens collected the light radiated at random from a small light source and directed the rays to the horizon.^[2]

Whale oil was the first fuel used and the lighthouse tenders worked in shifts making sure that the lamps did not go out and smoke the lens. In later years kerosene was used and eventually they were converted to electricity.^[2]

See also

• Mobile Point Range Lights
• Sand Island Light (Alabama)

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "The Fresnel Lens". BrownMarine.com. http://www.brownmarine.com/mobilebay.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-23. 

External links

• Alabama Lighthouse Association.
• Rowlett, Russ. "Lighthouses of the United States:Alabama". The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/al.htm. 
• Lighthouse Friends, Middle Bay Light.