BOLIVAR PENINSULA, Texas — The efforts of a Texas organization are paying off, and now, a structure known as a beacon on the upper Texas coast may soon shine again.
The historic Bolivar Peninsula Lighthouse turned 150 years old in November 2022. At 117 feet tall, it guided mariners for 61 years before it was decommissioned in 1993.
The lighthouse has been through multiple hurricanes, including Hurricane Ike, and even survived the Texas City Blast.
“It's very fragile up there, and we've had pieces that have fallen recently in the last couple of years,” Amy Maxwell Chase, executive director of the Bolivar Point Lighthouse Foundation, said.
The Bolivar Point Lighthouse Foundation was created with the sole purpose of restoring the lighthouse and opening it up to the public for the first time. After seven years of planning and fundraising, restoration on the lighthouse has begun.
Foundation organizers and Bolivar Peninsula residents watched as crews removed the crown of the lighthouse.
"Our number one first priority is the safety, to get the lighthouse top safely removed," Chase said. “We are blessed by the generous donors, supporters and sponsors that have really helped us get to this point."
The removal is phase one of a $5 million restoration project. The foundation is still working to raise the full $5 million to complete the renovations.
“The next phase will be taking down the next two levels and the masonry in there to get that safe and secured, so it will get capped," Chase said.
Mark Boyt, who is a descendant of the first private owners of the Bolivar Point Lighthouse, is excited that the restoration project has begun.
“My grandpa EV Boyt acquired it at a public auction," Boyt said. "It was considered a surplus property after World War II."
In June 2022, experts in historic architecture, engineering, masonry, ironworks and construction gathered to begin work on the restoration by investigating the foundation and upper lantern. Boyt said the lighthouse has good bones.
"The main body of the tower is in really good condition for being 150 years old," Boyt said. "We've checked the foundation. It's stable."
The lighthouse shielded hundreds when storms hit the peninsula in the 1950s/
"They say you can go out to sea, but you don't have to come back in from sea, and it's this lighthouse that has bought in thousands of sailors and boats over the years," Chase said. "And it's incredible piece of Texas history, and it's just something that has got to be saved."
Boyt hopes to one day make the lighthouse open to the public.
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