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The Labrador Current from the north and the Gulf Stream from the south converge near Cape Hatteras at the eastern tip of the Outer Banks. Here their strong currents can wreak havoc on watercraft by dashing them into Diamond Shoals, the twelve-mile sandbar lurking just offshore. Since the early 1500s, there have been over 2,300 shipwrecks off this stormy coast, known as the "graveyard of the Atlantic."

Despite the well-known dangers of the area, the U.S. government did not complete a lighthouse here until 1803. This lighthouse never lived up to expectations. Indeed, U.S. Navy Lieutenant David Porter called it "the worst lighthouse in the world" in his report to the Lighthouse Board in 1851. In 1871, after the Civil War, the board replaced it with a 198-foot brick tower. Shortly thereafter, the original tower was blown up.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, built with 1.25 million bricks, remains America's tallest lighthouse. Although capable of withstanding violent storms, the lighthouse nearly succumbed to the less ominous, but more dangerous, threat of erosion. By 1936, the ocean began licking the tower's base, forcing the Coast Guard to move the light to a new frame tower further inland. In 1950, after the ocean itself replenished the beach, the Coast Guard moved the light back to the brick tower and resumed operations.

Each year, more than 175,000 tourists visit Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Visible for miles, the lighthouse (now automated) can be reached by taking NC 12 down the barrier dune islands of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, turning at the village of Buxton.

Text © 1999 Terry White, Drawing © 1999 Bill Harrah