St. Mark's Lighthouse

On the road:  St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is located on the Gulf Coast in northwest Florida, almost due south of Tallahassee.  Established in 1931, it embraces 68,000 acres of coastland and provides wintering habitat for migratory birds.  It's also home to another kind of endangered species — a lighthouse.

The St. Marks (without an apostrophe) Lighthouse has had a checkered history.  Built at the mouth of the St. Marks River in 1830, the first lighthouse was rejected by the Customs Inspector because its walls were hollow, rather than solid.  A second tower, built the following year, fell prey to erosion and settling of the foundation.  The third tower — the one we see today — was built in 1842 at a site further inland.  The following year a hurricane destroyed the keeper's house and killed some 14 people at the lighthouse.  Hurricanes have repeatedly damaged the tower and destroyed several keeper's houses.  In addition, the light was the focus of hostilities during the Civil War.

The NWR spans 43 miles of coast and supports 52 species of
mammals, 40 species of amphibians, and 65 species of reptiles.
And a bunch of birds.

Salt marshes surround St. Marks Lighthouse.

This third tower dates from 1842.  The attached
keeper's house was built in 1854.

The Gulf of Mexico is literally just a few
feet away from the base of the tower.

However, the lighthouse's greatest challenge has not been architecture or weather, but government bureaucracy.  In 1960 the beacon was automated, and in 2000 the Fresnel lens was replaced with a solar powered beacon.  Since the 1960s the Coast Guard has allowed the entire facility to deteriorate, even though St. Marks remains an operational aid to navigation.  For several years an effort has been underway to transfer the property from USCG to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the National Wildlife Refuge.  A nonprofit group stands ready to raise funds to rehabilitate the facility, a project estimated at about $2 million.  But the decision to transfer the property is hung up somewhere in the slowly grinding mills of the gods in Washington, D.C.  Go figure.

The Coast Guard seems to take great pride in the Light...

...but the facility's condition makes you wonder.

St. Marks NWR has a very pleasant visitor center located seven miles inland from the lighthouse.  It offers several exhibits which explain the local ecology.  For example, the St. Marks Unit (one of four sections of the NWR) includes "upland forests, forested swamps, fresh and brackish water marshes, and a pristine salt water estuary ecosystem," according to the facility's web site.  In the spring the refuge is humming as songbirds migrate north through the longleaf pine forests, oak and palm hummocks, and dense stands of shrubs.  If you are a birder, this is a place to visit!

A very handsome hand-crafted martin house is on
display at the St. Marks visitor center...

...along with information about its makers.

There are three other lighthouses in this section of Florida, but St. Marks is the only one I'll have time to see on this trip.  It's time I was heading north. •••