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Located three miles off Pascagoula, Mississippi, the 1833 Round Island Lighthouse barely still stands as a monument to another time.
One of the oldest structures of its type on the Gulf Coast, the 44 foot tall tower once housed a fourth order lens. The abandoned lighthouse has always had a problem with vandalism, but now erosion threatens to undermine the tower.
In 1987, 38 volunteer sailors from the USS Wisconsin stacked 23 tons of cement bags and 14 tons of sand around the lighthouse, but by 1989 this had all washed away. In 1990 another effort was made. This time an area 500 feet by 30 feet west of the lighthouse was dredged six feet below mean tide and the dirt was placed around the lighthouse and stabilized with 500 pounds of limestone rip rap which was covered with vegetation. However, the lighthouse that has been owned by the local community since 1985. is again threatened by erosion.
This story appeared in the
January 1997 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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