Lin and Michael's Photos

Lin and Michael’s Photos

Hooper Straight Lighthouse at the Chesapeake Maritime Museum in St Michaels

The Hooper Strait Lighthouse, now standing on Navy Point, was originally built in 1879 to light the way for boats passing through the shallow, dangerous shoals of Hooper Strait, a thoroughfare for boats bound from the Chesapeake Bay across Tangier Sound to Deals Island or places along the Nanticoke and Wicomico Rivers. As a “screwpile” lighthouse, it is built on special iron pilings which were tipped with a screw that could be turned into the muddy bottom for a depth of 10 feet or more. The Museum’s lighthouse is the second lighthouse constructed at Hooper Strait – the first one was destroyed by ice in 1877. 

 

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