Connecting the Dots

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse

Spring Ledge lighthouse was once offshore.

You may think your software has the slowest connection. But sometimes connecting the dots is the slowest thing of all. Especially when it comes to government bureaucracy.

The government refused to build a lighthouse at Spring Ledge in 1832 even though a ship had burned in clear sight of local citizens. They had watched in horror as the lime coaster Nancy perished.  The Lighthouse Board finally proposed a lighthouse in 1891 at Spring Point Ledge when Steamship captains warned of a pending disaster. It helped that there was an economic benefit. The Steamship captains transported over 500,000 passengers who vacationed in Portland. Yet despite the backing of the community and the Lighthouse Board it took Congress until 1895 to fund the project. 

Spring Point Lighthouse is a caisson or spark plug lighthouse. It stands on a pressurized chamber because it was constructed offshore. Initially painted reddish brown, it was completed in 1897. An iron canopy graces the lighthouse. The breakwater that connects the lighthouse to the shore was completed in 1951. It was almost a century after the lighthouse was built. Perhaps the slowest connection of them all.