Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse stands near Buxton on Hatteras Island, marking Diamond Shoals, where the Gulf Stream meets the cold Labrador current and where roughly 2,000 ships have been lost along the stretch of coast known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Alexander Hamilton, who as a 17-year-old had survived a shipboard fire off the cape, oversaw the new federal Lighthouse Establishment in 1789 and recommended a light here. Congress funded it in 1794, and a 95-foot octagonal sandstone tower went into service in 1803. Mariners complained it was too short and too dim; it was raised and fitted with a first-order Fresnel lens in 1854, and Union troops occupied the island to protect it in 1861.

Congress authorized a replacement in 1867. The present conical brick tower, built from about 1,250,000 bricks from James River kilns at a cost of $155,000, was completed in December 1870. At 198 feet it is the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States. The black and white spiral daymark was painted in June 1873. Beach erosion forced the Lighthouse Service to abandon the tower in 1936, and it stayed dark until 1950, when the Coast Guard relit it with an electric beacon. The vandalized original lens was removed in 1949 and is now displayed at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras Village.

Between June 17 and July 9, 1999, International Chimney Corp. and Expert House Movers jacked the 4,830-ton tower onto steel mats and rolled it 2,900 feet inland, restoring its original 1,500-foot distance from the sea. The light returned to service on November 13, 1999. The National Park Service manages the light station as part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore; the Coast Guard maintains the beacon. In January 2024 the park began a $19.2 million restoration by Stone and Lime Historic Restoration Services that includes a replica first-order Fresnel lens. Crews found cracked cast-iron gallery brackets in 2025, and the tower will remain closed to climbing through 2026.