Puerto Ferro Lighthouse

(go here to see all Vieques Island posts)

The Puerto Ferro Lighthouse lies on the south side of the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico. (Vieques has an unfortunately sordid history, which you can read about in my other posts about the island, linked above.) From 1899 to 1926, it guided ships through the Vieques Passage. Its construction began in 1896 (frequently and incorrectly cited as the date it was first lit) by the Spanish but was interrupted by the Spanish-American War, in which the United States took control of Puerto Rico. The U.S. finished the lighthouse, finally turning it on in December of 1899.

The structure functioned not only as a lighthouse but also as the keeper’s permanent dwelling. The living area consisted of a kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and an office. The idea of living in a lighthouse on a sea cliff out in the middle of nowhere may sound spooky to some people, but it satisfies about half of my childhood fantasies that revolve around being an orphan, and almost all of my adult horror-fantasies about living a sad, reclusive life that ends with me drinking myself to death via bathtub gin and leaving behind an unpublished manuscript that could only be described as “near-genius, beautifully flawed only by unwavering humanity.” Haha kidding, I’d probably leave behind an unfinished comic book full of mediocre fart jokes.

The spiral staircase, located in the middle of the living area, led to the lantern room where, according to Lighthousefriends.com, the “Fresnel lens…was revolved by a clockwork mechanism attached to a 200-pound weight that was suspended in the stairway’s central column.”

The lighthouse, situated atop an unstable sea cliff, eventually began to crack. In 1920, a plea was made for reconstruction either on or near the site, but it never happened. Six years later an earthquake struck, widening the preexisting cracks and creating new ones on the lighthouse roof. The building was abandoned shortly after.

In the following decades, two-thirds of Vieques was taken over by the U.S Navy and used for testing explosives. More on that here. 

Kitchen area of lighthouse keeper’s quarters.

View from the roof towards the east end of the island.

For more photos, go to the Puerto Ferro Lighthouse flickr set.

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