CAMERON PARISH, La. — The Sabine Pass Lighthouse will be lit up Friday and Saturday night for the first time in nearly 70 years.
Tonight and Saturday night the lighthouse will be lit using an LED light powered by a generator to simulate what the lighthouse beacon used to look like from a little after 5 p.m. until about 1 a.m.
Volunteers with the Cameron Preservation Alliance plan to start the generator and let the light run until the generator runs out of gas.
There's no public access to the lighthouse but you can view the light this Friday and Saturday from a little over a half mile a way across the ship channel in Sabine Pass along South 1st Street.
The light may also be seen from Walter Umphrey State Park a little over four miles to the northwest.
Volunteers have been working to shore up the 163-year-old structure that sits on a small point of land just across the channel from Sabine Pass in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
The U.S. Coast Guard shut down the 87-foot-tall lighthouse in 1952 after new technology made it unneeded and since then it has fallen into disrepair.
The lighthouse was lit for almost 95 years, but was temporarily shut down during the Civil War.
The goal of volunteers is to keep the structure from deteriorating any further according to Andrew Tingler of the Cameron Preservation Alliance.
The group is adding steel bands around the top of the structure where some of the bricks and mortar have cracked.
They're also adding louvered doors to allow air to flow through the structure.
Ownership of the lighthouse was transferred to the Cameron Preservation Alliance in 2001.
Sabine Pass Lighthouse facts from SabinePassLIghthouse.org :
- Base Elevation: 2 foot above median high tide.
- Height: 87 feet
- Focal Plane: 75 feet
- Lat./Long: 29.43.04 / 93.51.00
- Lens: 3rd order Fresnel which cast a white light. (missing - location unknown)
- Flash: Lamp flashed every 90 seconds by internal clock work mechanism.
- Tower Shape: Octogon with 8 buttresses which gives it a 'Rocket Ship' appearance.
- Material: Brick with ShellCrete covering and foundation.
- Wall construction: 60 inch thick at the base and 18 inch thick at the top - combination of Brick, mortar and ShellCrete.
- Color: Originally white with black bands added in 1938.
- Tower Access: Spiral staircase with Cast Iron Steps. (collapsed in Hurricane Ike 2008)
- Roofing: Original roof was copper but was stripped by vandals in 1970's.
- Access: Private gravel and dirt (or mud depending upon season) road to location. Lighthouse Bayou (about 75' in width) blocks direct access.
