‘America’s Answer to Castles,’ the Lighthouse, Enters Age of Automation

Exactly 200 years after George Washington addressed the burning question of who would look after the nation’s lighthouses, the Coast Guard plans to complete its process of automating the country’s seaside beacons.

On Aug. 7, 1789, three months after his inauguration, the Father of Our Country signed legislation that provided for federal control over the “establishment and support of the nation’s lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers.”

The position of lighthouse keeper was once a prestigious presidential appointment, but computers and automation can perform the beacons’ daily functions just as well.

Nostalgic Figure

“The old-time lighthouse keeper, you know, pipe in mouth--that’s the group most people think of nostalgically,” said James Hyland, chairman of the Lighthouse Preservation Society in Rockport, Mass. “That era is over.”

The historic Portland Head Light, at the mouth of Portland Harbor in Cape Elizabeth, is slated to be automated this August, when the Coast Guard completes its automation process, but lighthouse enthusiasts will not let the day pass without fanfare.

The preservation group plans a three-day bicentennial Aug. 5-7 at the much-photographed lighthouse, inspiration for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetry and painter Edward Hopper’s seascapes.

Concerns for Disrepair

The 1,000-member group is concerned about the nation’s estimated 500 lighthouses falling into semi-abandonment and disrepair without the presence of eagle-eyed keepers. The last of the official keepers now await automation of their lights and then reassignment.

“It’s an experience we’re not going to forget, let’s put it that way,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer Davis Simpson of his family’s stint as the last keepers of Portland Head Light. “It’s become a job. The thrill of living in a lighthouse wears off after a while, but something always turns up to make it interesting.”

Most lighthouses on the East Coast have already undergone automation. Along with the Portland Head Light, only the Boston Light in Boston Harbor and the Coney Island light in New York remain as major lighthouses in the Northeast not yet run by computers.

‘Source of Symbolism’

“It’s a very unique style of architecture not found in any other kind of building,” Hyland said. “It’s been the subject of so much art, literature and poetry over the years, with a lot of artists seeing it as a great source of symbolism.”

Hyland calls lighthouses “America’s answer to castles.” He spends most of his time coordinating private or community initiatives to take over lighthouse maintenance after Coast Guard computers take over the lamps.

While automation leaves a working light and the Coast Guard provides rudimentary upkeep of the tower, Hyland said the removal of human keepers often leads to the negligence of their quarters and many facilities once vital to the lighthouse’s function.

“I don’t want to alienate the Coast Guard because they really do want to maintain the buildings, but they just don’t have the money or the setup to do so,” Hyland said. “These buildings are purely functional to them.”

Doesn’t Expect Worst

Lt. Paul Reid, the Coast Guard’s Northeast regional director for automation, said he doubted that automation would lead to total deterioration of the historic auxiliary structures.

“The majority will get locked up,” Reid conceded. “But I think we’ve been pretty responsible in not destroying anything in the five years I’ve been here that we didn’t need to destroy. I can’t speak for the 40 or 50 years before I got here, but I think we’ve done a great job maintaining what we have.”

Reid said the Coast Guard has also taken an active interest in matching lighthouses with local community groups that might be able to maintain lighthouse sites.

The money required for such work, however, is usually too much for small groups to shoulder alone. The Coast Guard signed an agreement with the nation’s historical societies three years ago to lease lighthouses, usually for 30-year terms, to interested nonprofit organizations in return for restoration and maintenance.

Historical Societies

“With the high-profile lights, the well-known ones that are easy to visit and that people go to, we’ve been pretty successful at getting the historical societies to take them over,” Reid said. “Money is always a big thing. We don’t charge anything on the leases, but along with the lease they’re responsible for maintenance. So in reality it’s quite an expense.”

In 1986, Congress allocated a “bicentennial fund” of $3 million for lighthouse restoration over three years. Hyland’s group has since become one of the main clearinghouses for this aid.

Hyland hopes the wealthier lighthouse-maintenance organizations might spread the proceeds of their museums and gift shops to the others, many of which maintain lights that are all but inaccessible to tourists.

Far from inaccessible is the Portland Head Light, where about 100,000 people pass through the lighthouse grounds and museum each year.

‘No Privacy’

“They (the tourists) become very difficult, peeking in your windows all the time. There is absolutely no privacy at all,” said Simpson, who lives at the beacon with his two daughters.

But Simpson says he will be sad to leave the historic lighthouse, where his job is basically identical to that performed by the 28 other keepers beginning with Joseph K. Greenleaf, who opened the tower in 1791: Turn the lamp on at night and off in the morning.

“In the long term they think they’re going to save a lot of money, which I think they may very well do,” Simpson said. “But that’s 200 years of history in that tower.”