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Once dim lighthouse on Anclote Key shines

The lighthouse, which underwent a $1.5-million facelift, will be open for free guided tours Saturday.

By TERRI BRYCE REEVES
Published October 14, 2005

ANCLOTE KEY - Put on your sneakers or water shoes (no flip-flops, please) and plan to climb a 101-foot spiral stairway through a narrow cast-iron cylinder - the Anclote Key Lighthouse.

Your reward?

Salty breezes and a rare bird's-eye view of Anclote Key, the gulf, beaches and nearby islands.

Free guided tours of the lighthouse, built in 1887, will be offered from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. After a $1.5-million renovation and the installation of a lighthouse keeper, officials are poised for a resurgence of interest in the nature-filled island and its historic structure.

"We may try to do this once a month," said Connie Wiesehan, the park ranger who moved into her little house on the preserve in November.

"A few weeks ago, we invited about 60 people from the (Anclote Key) beach up to see the lighthouse, and they loved it," she said.

But you will need a water scooter, power boat or sea kayak to get there. The lighthouse sits at the southern tip of the 4-mile-long island - about two miles from the Pinellas-Pasco line - and no public transportation is available.

Until a few years ago, vandals, time and neglect had taken a toll on the lighthouse, leaving it rusted, broken and covered with graffiti.

Now it is like new, say authorities.

"It's been completely sandblasted, painted inside and out, and (the lamp) has a fourth-order Fresnel lens," said Mike Hancock, a spokesman for the Friends of the Anclote Key State Park and Lighthouse organization, which helped raise money for the project. "This is one of the nation's oldest structures, and it behooves us to save it for future generations."

The replica Fresnel lens uses prisms and a 50-watt bulb to project a beam of light that can be seen 16 or 17 miles away. It flashes every 30 seconds and is a useful landmark for fishermen and boaters, Wiesehan said.

The Friends organization will be selling memberships, memorial bricks and lighthouse memorabilia at the event to help raise money to rebuild the two original keepers' quarters.

Hancock, a retired Coast Guard chief warrant officer, hopes people will take advantage of this opportunity and possibly spot some raccoons, turtles, eagles and osprey along the way.

"It's an easy climb up the lighthouse," he said. "And people will get to see raw nature undisturbed."

[Last modified October 14, 2005, 01:40:20]