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Bodies washed ashore from shipwrecks led to the naming of Bodie Island, according to local folklore. The lighthouse here helps ships follow the southbound inshore current while avoiding the powerful northbound Gulf Stream.

The 163-foot conical brick tower, built in 1872, is the third lighthouse at this site. The first, a 54-foot brick tower built in 1847, was doomed by a faulty plan and the appointment of a project supervisor who was an ex-customs inspector with little knowledge of lighthouses or, for that matter, construction. By 1859, this lighthouse had deteriorated beyond repair, and the Lighthouse Board replaced it with a sturdy 80-foot tower. Less than two years later, Confederate soldiers blew the replacement to smithereens.

Bad luck continued at the site, when a flock of birds crashed into the first-order Fresnel lens within a month after the initial lighting of the third tower. A jerry-rigged net of heavy wire was quickly put into place to protect the lantern from further damage. Now automated, this lantern remains in use.

The boldly-striped Bodie Island Lighthouse can be found a few miles south of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore entrance. A paved road leads to the tower, located about a mile off Route 12. Still a working lighthouse, the tower is closed to the public, but the National Park Service operates a visitors center in the old keeper's house.

Text © 1999 Terry White, Drawing © 1999 Bill Harrah