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Biloxi Lighthouse
- Highway 90 & Porter Avenue
- Biloxi, MS 39530
- Phone: 228.435.6339
- Send Email
- Visit Website
Overview:
The Lighthouse is presently closed for restoration but still remains one of the most photographed sites on the Gulf Coast.In 1847, Stephen Pleasonton, Fifth Auditor of the Treasury Department, announced, "I intend to put a Cast Iron Light House at Biloxi and this will prove the utility which they may be of”. The Biloxi Lighthouse thus became the first cast iron tower in the South. The utility of the tower was certainly proven in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina, The worst natural disaster to hit the United States, hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the lighthouse still remains standing.
The lighthouse was one of three Mississippi Sound Lighthouses authorized in 1847 by legislation sponsored by Mississippi Representative Jefferson Davis. Metal plates, cast by Murray and Hazlehurst Vulcan Works in Baltimore, were bolted together to form a metal wrapper around a brick liner.
The tower was completed in the spring of 1848 and Marcellus J. Howard was assigned as the first keeper. Although the first keeper was a man, the Biloxi Lighthouse would later earn the distinction of having been kept by female keepers for more years than any other lighthouse in the United States. Mary Reynolds was the first female keeper, serving from 1854 to 1866.
Like several other iron towers, the Biloxi Lighthouse received a coat of black coal tar shortly after the Civil War to protect it from rust. This color change led to the persistent myth that the tower was painted black to mourn the death of Abraham Lincoln. The tower was repainted white in 1869 to make it stand out from the dark backdrop of trees near the lighthouse.
