1882 Bell Tower on the Potomac River below Fort Washington
13551 Fort Washington Rd, Fort Washington, MD 20744
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Fort Washington Park entrance fee typically $10/vehicle or America the Beautiful Pass. Lighthouse viewing free with park admission.
Access
Limited Access
Riverside trail with stairs and slope down to the lighthouse
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1882 · National Park Service Site · Potomac River Lighthouse Heritage · Historic Wooden Bell Tower
The first lighthouse on the Fort Washington property was authorized in 1856 by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, with construction completed in 1857. The light was intended to guide commercial shipping along the Potomac River between the Chesapeake Bay and the federal-era ports at Alexandria and Washington. Maintenance was assigned to the personnel of Fort Washington.
The initial light proved inadequate, and a series of replacements followed. A temporary cast-iron tower replaced the original within a year. In 1870, a 16-foot replacement tower built in Baltimore was erected closer to the water, mounting a sixth-order Fresnel lens.
The present 32-foot wooden pyramidal bell tower was built in 1882, paired with a fog bell signal. A keeper's house was completed in 1885. In 1901 the tower height was increased to improve the light's visibility, and a small automated fixed white light was added alongside the bell.
The Coast Guard automated the station and ended manned operation in 1954. The bell mechanism gradually fell out of service. In 2005 management transferred to the National Park Service as part of Fort Washington Park. In 2020 the Coast Guard removed both the active light and the daymark, ending the lighthouse's official navigational role.
Sources
Lighthouse paranormal tradition in the United States typically attaches to lights with long-tenured resident keepers, dramatic shipwrecks nearby, or unusual keeper deaths. The Fort Washington Lighthouse meets none of these criteria. The keeper's residence was small, occupied only intermittently in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the bell tower itself was a supplementary navigational structure to a larger fort.
Most of the regional paranormal lore in this section of the Potomac River relates to Fort Washington proper, the 1808-1824 brick fort overlooking the lighthouse. Visitors to the lighthouse area occasionally report a sense of presence and unexplained sounds during evening walks, but these accounts do not coalesce into named entities or distinct phenomena.
For most visitors the lighthouse is best approached as a small, charming component of a larger Fort Washington Park visit rather than as a paranormal destination in its own right.
Visit the 32-foot wooden pyramidal bell tower built in 1882, located below Fort Washington on the Potomac River. The lighthouse is part of Fort Washington Park, operated by the National Park Service since 2005. The bell mechanism is no longer functional, and the Coast Guard removed the beacon in 2020.
The lighthouse is visible from several Potomac River overlooks within Fort Washington Park. Best photographs are taken from the river bluff above.
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