St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum

For the past thirteen years, Lindsey Wilson College has traveled from Columbia, Kentucky, to St. Augustine, Florida, for a service-oriented Spring Break. Each year a dozen students spend their spring break, helping non-profits in St. Augustine. This year, students helped our operations team re-sod the courtyard and clean the Maritime Hammock Nature Trails. The Lighthouse is grateful for this longstanding collaboration with Lindsey Wilson College!?

WELCOME BIKERS! It’s Bike Week 2025 and bikers are welcome at the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum! We offer parking spaces and motorcycle kickstand pucks. Museum hours are 9 AM to 6 PM seven days a week.

SUMMER CAMP REGISTRATION OPENS MARCH 1ST! Campers experience an exciting six-week camp filled with fun and learning, guided by our amazing certified teachers and camp counselors! Don't miss out! Space is Limited! Register at: https://lnkd.in/e3AmXQeu

When the United States entered World War II, St. Augustine became an important coastal defense area and a training center for the U.S. Coast Guard.?A barracks, the Coastal Lookout Building, was erected on the Lightstation grounds to house Coast Guardsmen who stood watch on top of the Lighthouse and patrolled the beaches along the coast to protect against enemy activity - particularly German U-boats in the area. Today, the Coastal Lookout building features a WWII exhibit.?Visit this exhibit to learn about St. Augustine’s role in World War II and the threat of German submarines off the coast.?The exhibit features artifacts and videos along with stories drawn from interviews with those who lived here during the war.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeology Maritime Program (LAMP) team has been hard at work discovering, preserving and presenting the history of America’s Oldest Port! This tobacco pipe was recovered from the Tolomato Bar Anchorage site, which includes the working waterfront of a 1768-1783 indigo plantation named “Grant’s Villa” owned by the first British governor of Florida, James Grant. The pipe was found amid wooden pilings and planks that were assembled to make some kind of seawall on the waterfront, in an area very close to where the plantation road led to the river from the interior fields and slave cabins of the plantation. This pipe dates to the 1700s and with further analysis archaeologists should be able to narrow that date range down further. It was manufactured from white, kaolin clay, and could have been imported from as far away as England or the Netherlands. It is likely that it was used, broken, and discarded by an overseer, an enslaved African, or a sailor who was working on the waterfront unloading supplies or loading cakes of processed indigo.

Another successful Lighthouse 5K & Fun Run on the books for 2025! This annual event is hosted by the Junior Service League of St. Augustine, the nonprofit organization that helped save the Keepers’ House and created the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum! Thanks to the members for continuing to support our community’s nonprofits and help the St. Augustine Lighthouse with ongoing historic preservation!

The St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeology Maritime Program (LAMP) team recently returned from the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) conference in New Orleans where they presented session papers based on their recent research. The LAMP team participates in this conference annually. In fact, the papers presented last year by members of the team were recently published in the Society for Historical Archaeology publication ACUA Underwater Archaeology Proceedings 2024. Those papers include: 1. WWII Survey in Green Cove Springs, FL, by Dorothy Rowland. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in Green Cove Springs, Florida to look for evidence of the area’s World War II history as a naval air station and reserve fleet mooring location. 2. Tides of Time: Climate Change and its Impact on the Maritime Archaeological Sites of Fort Mose and Tolomato Bar Anchorage, St. Augustine, Florida, by Arielle R. Cathers and Bryce A. Peacher. This paper delves into the intersection of climate change and maritime archaeology on two sites in St. Augustine, FL: Fort Mose and the Tolomato Bar Anchorage. 3. Revisiting the Little Talbot Island Shipwreck (8DU3157), a 19th-Century Beached Shipwreck in Duval County, Northeast Florida by Chuck Meide. This paper presents an overview of this shipwreck, with an emphasis on how it has changed over the years, particularly after recent storms. The museum established LAMP in 1999 to engage in research and maritime archaeology aimed at ?understanding 500 years of maritime heritage in St. Augustine and the State of Florida. ?Serving as the museum's research division, this team plays a vital role in academic research and knowledge dissemination, supporting our mission to discover, preserve, and present the history of America’s Oldest Port.

History in the Shadow of the Tower Lecture Series Thursday, February 20: The Archaeology of Fort Mose from 6:30-8 PM at the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, 100 Red Cox Drive, St. Augustine Dr. Lori Lee, Associate Professor of Anthropology of Flagler College Chuck Meide, Director of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program at the St. Augustine Lighthouse Both will lead this session, sharing the findings from archaeological fieldwork conducted at the Fort Mose site. As the site of the first settlement for escaped enslaved Africans in North America, Fort Mose continues to rewrite the history of slavery in world history. REGISTRATION IS FREE:?https://lnkd.in/ePuV9GqC

The 1876 Keepers’ House at the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum showcases three exhibits: 1. Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy - Find out about the modern global shrimping industry that has its roots right here in the Nation’s Oldest Port. Hear stories from the enterprising families and people that made St. Augustine the shrimping capital of the world in the mid-20th century. 2. At Home with the Harns - At Home with the Harns?highlights the life of a lighthouse keeper’s family in late 1880s St. Augustine and tells the story of the family of William Harn, the first long-term lighthouse keeper (1875 –1889) at the current St. Augustine Light Station. 3. WRECKED! Discover St. Augustine’s ties to the American Revolutionary War in this interactive exhibition.?See artifacts from a 1782 British loyalist shipwreck found right here in St. Augustine and learn how underwater archaeologists locate historic shipwrecks on the ocean floor. General admission includes these exhibits and so much more. Hours are 9 AM-6 PM seven days a week. Learn more at?staugustinelighthouse.org!

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” — Martin Luther King Jr.