Portal:Lighthouses
 The Lighthouse Portal IntroductionA lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and use of electronic navigational systems. Selected article
Point Stephens Light is an active lighthouse located on Point Stephens, a point on an unnamed headland at the east of Fingal Bay, 4.25 km (2.64 mi) south of the entrance of Port Stephens, New South Wales, Australia. It serves in assisting vessels entering Port Stephens. It is considered an endangered lighthouse due to remote location and old age. Proposed in 1857, the lighthouse was built in 1862. Designed by Alexander Dawson, the New South Wales Government Architect at that time, both the lighthouse's flared base and the keeper's cottages combined terrace are unique architectural features for the period. The light source used was originally kerosene lamps, which upgraded in 1912 to a Dalén light, upgraded again to electric light in 1960, automated in 1973, and finally converted to solar power in 1990. In 1991 the last caretaker withdrew from the premises and very soon after the keeper's cottages were vandalised and burned. The tower is designed in the form of a Doric column. It is divided into four stories with a spiral stairway, and topped by a gallery carrying the lantern. The keeper's cottages are three one story cottages, sharing a roof. Other structures which still stand at the location are a circa 1930 privy and workshop built in the 1950s. The lighthouse is managed as part of the Tomaree National Park. Access to the lighthouse is difficult, either through a narrow spit of sand at low tide or by boat. Selected biographyKatherine "Kate" Walker (1850s – February 5, 1931) was born in Northern Germany as Katherine Gortler and was an American lighthouse keeper. Walker tended the Robbins Reef Light in the Lower New York Bay in New York Harbor for more than thirty years after the death of her husband, Captain John Walker, who had been appointed keeper of the light in 1883. In 1886, John Walker was dying from pneumonia. In the hospital, his parting words to his wife were, "Mind the light, Kate." He never returned to the lighthouse again. Katherine Walker was appointed the official keeper of the light by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890, four years after her husband's death. During her commitment on the tower she rescued 50 sailors from shipwrecks, and raised two children, Jacob and Mary. Selected image.jpg) The Point Reyes Lighthouse is a lighthouse in the Gulf of the Farallones on Point Reyes in Marin County, California. Built in 1870 as a twin of the Cape Mendocino Light, the Point Reyes Lighthouse was automated in 1975 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Did you know?
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