On th at day, our 1st order Fresnel lens was put back into service after being repaired. In 1986, a vandal shot the lens at the top of the Lighthouse tower damaging 19 of the prisms. Beginning in 1980, the Junior Service League led a massive community effort to restore the St. Augustine Light Station. The restoration of the Keepers’ House was completed in 1990 after a disastrous fire in 1970. The League opened the Lighthouse [...]
by Chuck Meide I was just 26, a bright-eyed graduate student at Florida State University, and it was the archaeological project of a lifetime. My friend and colleague David Johnson was a grad student at Texas A&M University. He’d taken a phone call from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, an island nation in the extreme southeast of the Caribbean. Better known now, but not then, as the scenic island filmed on location for Disney’s Pirates [...]
In 1970, a suspicious fire gutted the abandoned Keepers’ House located at the St. Augustine Light Station. The following year, St. Johns County purchased the property from the United States Coast Guard with the intention of demolishing the burned-out shell of the building. Enter the Junior Service League of St. Augustine and the idea of restoring the Keepers’ House as a museum and community center. The women of the JSL literally turned back the bulldozers, [...]
The Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) Conservation team installed a new case in the Wrecked! Exhibit. This new case replaces the Star Waters mannequin and features one of the muskets recovered from the Storm Wreck, the American Revolution-era shipwreck excavated in 2009. Other artifacts associated with the musket including flintlock, flint, shot and even some paper wadding are also featured. The team has recently installed a second musket in the exhibit. The muskets have undergone [...]
(Photo credit: Mark Krancer) Memorial Park is a historic city park located on the north side of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida. Following World War I, the Rotary Club of Jacksonville created the park to commemorate the Floridians who died in WWI, with a large copper statue serving as a memorial. At the statue’s base, a time capsule was interred on December 24, 1924, containing a scroll with a list of the Florida [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBJJirfR2wc (Drone footage courtesy of Eric Wilson, LAMP Volunteer) The entirety of the Crescent Beach Shipwreck Maritime archaeologists from the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum’s research arm, Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), have documented the entirety of the Crescent Beach Shipwreck site. In November 2020, LAMP was notified of a previously unknown shipwreck that had become exposed on the southern end of Crescent Beach. Local beachgoers noticed the wooden wreckage and posted pictures on [...]
Did you know that the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum's Wrecked! Exhibit is based around a shipwreck from the Revolutionary War? Check out our Director of Archaeology, Chuck Meide, as he gives a tour of the Wrecked! Exhibit. Access to the exhibit is included in general admission. Link to video on Wrecked! Exhibit Above: LAMP archaeologist working on a shipwreck. Above: Field school students actively participate in survey work as part of their training.
Pearl Harbor Day’s annual remembrance on Dec. 7 generally sends me searching for images from that horrible attack. Visiting the Pearl Harbor Naval Memorial in Hawaii some years ago was one of the most memorable moments of my life, as I gazed down at the hull of the U.S.S. Arizona, trying to imagine what it was like years before. I remember sitting outside by the harbor and listening intently to stories about that day from two Navy [...]
ST. AUGUSTINE, FL – The recent tropical storm helped to uncover the remains of a shipwreck buried under a dune along Crescent Beach. Mark O’Donoghue, a local resident, found the exposed timbers and reached out to the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) Director, Chuck Meide. The LAMP team began inspecting and documenting the shipwreck the same day. After completing the initial survey, the LAMP team determined that the ship is likely an American [...]
#LoveYourLighthouse Your St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum is closed to protect you and your lighthouse family from COVID-19. While we are closed, we invite you to take virtual tours of the lighthouse and museum in the following YouTube videos. Your Gift of Love for our Maritime Heritage Makes A Difference. Donate today, or take advantage of deep discount opportunities by visiting www.staugustinelighthouse.org. Stay Safe and #LoveYourLighthouse Tour the St. Augustine Lighthouse with Head Lighthouse Keeper Rick [...]
