Cockspur Island Lighthouse – Wandering Dawgs

August 7 is National Lighthouse Day in the United States. On this day in 1789 Congress passed a law to provide federal funding for all lighthouses.

I love lighthouses so to celebrate this event I am featuring the four historic lighthouses that are accessible to the public in the state of Georgia. The Tybee Island Lighthouse underwent major restoration in 2024. The featured image shows the lighthouse flying the American Flag during the restoration.

The following gallery shows the Tybee Island Lighthouse after the restoration was complete. On the right is the Cockspur Island Lighthouse. Although the Cockspur Light is not open to the public it can be seen from the Lazaretto Creek Bridge on U. S. Highway 80 on the way to Tybee Island, from a boat, or from the Lighthouse Trail at Ft. Pulaski National Monument.

In the next gallery the St. Simons Island Lighthouse is on the left, the Sapelo Island Lighthouse on the right.

Every Day is a Gift

The challenge from Elizabeth of Albatz Travel Adventures is to use diptychs to create perfect pairs. I wasn’t familiar with this term so I was glad she defined it like this: “A diptych is two images placed in proximity to one another, forming a pair. To make a successful pairing there should be several things in common, and something very different, contrasting.“

I love lighthouses and I am fortunate to live close to two different lighthouses. The first one I will feature is the Tybee Island Light Station, Georgia’s oldest and tallest lighthouse with 178 steps to the top. The original lighthouse was constructed in 1736. The lighthouse has been rebuilt several times and the daymark has also changed several times. Today the lighthouse is painted with the 1916 daymark of three stripes – black at the top, white in the middle, black at the bottom.

The lighthouse has just completed it’s latest restoration. The first two images below show the lighthouse during the restoration project and the lighthouse as it looks today with it’s new coat of paint.

Tybee Island Lighthouse during restoration, June, 2024

The Lighthouse flies an American Flag on patriotic holidays such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veteran’s Day. The following two images show the lighthouse as it was on Memorial Day, 2021 and this year’s Memorial Day, 2024 after the old layers of paint had been scraped off.

Tybee Island Light Station on Memorial Day 2021, before the 2024 restoration

The Cockspur Island Lighthouse is shown in the next pair. On the left is a closeup of the lighthouse at high tide as seen from a boat. On the right is the lighthouse as seen from the Lighthouse trail at Ft. Pulaski National Monument near Tybee Island. If you look closely at the image from the trail you can see the top of the Tybee Island Lighthouse to the right of the water tower on the other side of the water behind the lighthouse.