Unique Experiences

Item Description

You are bidding on a family pass for four guests to visit this historical lighthouse and museum.

In 1970, a suspicious fire gutted the vacated keeper’s house, which had been declared excess by the government. St. Johns County was about to purchase the property, and condominiums were discussed as one possibility for the best use of the land. In 1980, as bulldozers threatened, in stepped the Junior Service League with a will to restore the property and open a maritime museum. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Over the next 15 years, the Junior Service League would dig in hands-on and raise over $1.2 million to restore the keepers’ house, the lighthouse tower and the original Fresnel lens. The lens had been shot by a vandal’s bullet, damaging 19 prisms in the beehive structure. The US Coast Guard shut down the lens in 1991 and replaced it with a modern airport beacon, but the League quickly rose to this challenge. The keepers’ house restoration was finished in 1990, and in 1991, the League signed a lease with the U.S. Coast Guard and opened part time to the public. In 1993, the Junior Service League of St. Augustine held the first Community Day with a lens relighting and fireworks. The Cable News Network (CNN) covered the first restoration of a Fresnel lens in the nation.

A maritime museum opened full-time in early 1994. What is today the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum Inc., separately incorporated from the League in 1998. A community based Board of Trustees was seated representing the diversity of the area. The following year, a second not-for-profit, the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program was formed to help the Museum study shipwrecks and coastal resources.

2001-Current
In 2001, Museum archaeologists recorded the foundations of the first lighthouse tower, as well as working on the remains of the first of a series of British shipwrecks off shore, under permit from the State of Florida.

Today in addition to an active research program, the Museum owns the entire Light Station property, including the tower and Fresnel lens, given to the Museum by the United States Coast Guard in 2002. A national preservation award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation recognized the work of the Museum in establishing a new federal preservation law and continuing to preserve the site to the Secretary’s Standards

A collection of 19,000 objects, archival documents and archaeological specimens is held in trust for future generations at the Museum. Over 216,000 visitors including thousands of school age children enjoy educational programs and tours. Visitors  can step up to help the non-profit St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum save maritime history. The Museum is a Smithsonian affiliate that was accredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 2017.

The current lighthouse tower is 145 years old in October 2019. It is one part of an aid-to-navigation system here supporting military defense, travel, trade, fishing, boat building and pleasure boating since the 16th century.