Print Size: 24" x 36" (Frame Size: 24" x 36") Designed by the U.S. Lighthouse Board, 1873 : Built by T. H. Tynan of Staten Island, 1874
This cutaway axonometric reveals the essential elements of Block Island lighthouse, which was designed in 1873 and erected the following year high atop Mohegan Bluff (12 miles off the coast of Rhode Island) to warn sailors of the treacherous shoals on the way into Long Island Sound. The distinctive 67-foot-high tower and an attached Gothic Revival house were erected as showpieces of the U.S. Light House Board and remain among the most picturesque and architecturally sophisticated in the nation. The octagonal tower, built on a sturdy granite foundation, narrows from a 25-foot diameter at bottom to 15 feet at the base of the lantern. A circular iron staircase attached to the wall climbs to the 4th story watchroom, where indoor and outdoor galleries provide unobstructed views of the Atlantic Ocean. Above, the original lard-burning lamp was installed in an unusual 16-sided glass lantern, flashing safety warnings some 22-miles out to sea.
To prevent slippage off the badly eroded bluff, the lighthouse and the attached keeper’s house were moved several hundred feet back from the water’s edge in 1993. The relocation and the substitution of modern 1,000-watt electric lighting are effectively the only changes made to the remarkably intact nineteenth-century lighthouse.
