Adopt a Lighthouse
The Herald News reports that the 125 year old Borden Flats Lighthouse is up for adoption.
The lighthouse, which stands off-shore where the Taunton River flows into Mount Hope Bay, is being offered by the U.S. General Services Administration to local, state or federal agencies, non-profits, or historical or preservation societies.
Lighthouses like Borden Flats are offered for availability if the Coast Guard finds them unnecessary for navigational aid, said Jeff Gales, executive director of the United States Lighthouse Society, based in San Francisco.
“It’s quite common actually,” Gales said. “In earlier days, lighthouses were required to go to the highest bidder. In 2000, the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act was passed, which says that it can’t be sold to the highest bidder.”
Any group which adopts the lighthouse must be able to financially maintain it.
The Borden Flats Light was commissioned in 1875 and built six years later at a cost of $24,000 to warn passing ships of underwater jags. It was built with sensors to pick up humidity and fog to activate the foghorn and bell.
It was staffed by a lighthouse keeper around the clock for much of its life. The lighthouse was electrified in 1957 and became fully-automated in 1963. Its light was originally a kerosene lamp, but was updated to a plastic lens in 1977.
Much of the original living quarters have been removed, and only a staircase to the light remains. The 50-foot structure reportedly has been leaning since a hurricane in 1938.
