Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

J. Robert Burnell

in addition to a book, a plan for a digital archive of what we found—a searchable site where anyone interested could follow the stories of the screwpiles. The screwpile lighthouses were invaluable navigational aids during a remarkable 100 year period in our nation’s history. Many of the lighthouses came alive in 1855, and by the mid-1950s nearly all cottage lighthouses were razed or abandoned. Most were replaced with automated light towers except Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse near

Annapolis, Maryland. During that century, the United States endured three major wars, steamboats became obsolete, commerce expanded dramatically, air, highway, and rail travel became routine, and technological advances came along more rapidly than the lightkeepers of old could have imagined.

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