Just in time for summer Welcome back to Period Dramas, a weekly column that alternates between rounding up historic homes on the market and answering questions we?ve always had about older structures.
If you?re escaping to a coastal getaway this Memorial Day weekend?or any time this summer?chances are you?ll spot a lighthouse or two along the shore. And, if you?re even luckier, it?ll be fully functional.
While modern navigation technology has rendered lighthouses somewhat obsolete, lighthouses were a vital means of navigating tricky landscapes and harbors for thousands of years. The first examples can be traced back to antiquity; one of the seven wonders of the ancient world is the Lighthouse of Alexandria, built in 280 BCE.
Modern lighthouses emerged in England in the early 18th century, as engineers tried to successfully navigate around the notoriously dangerous Eddystone Rocks off of England?s southwestern tip. They showed up at the same time in America when Boston Light?the first lighthouse stateside?opened on the Massachusetts shoreline in 1716. Other lighthouses were then built up and down the Eastern Seaboard?and they continued to spread throughout the states.
Made of everything from wood to brick to masonry?they did have to stand up to seaside weather, after all?the complex of a tower and a cottage nearby is called a ?light station.? The term ?lighthouse? technically refers only to the tower, which is topped by the ?lantern room,? a glassed-in space where ...