Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

Hooper Strait Lighthouse, St. Michaels, Maryland Hooper Strait Light, built in 1867 to replace a lightship stationed at Hooper Strait in Dorchester County, Maryland, lasted only a decade before ice tore the screwpile’s cottage from its foundation and sent it floating down the Chesapeake Bay. Using the lens, lamp, and fog bell salvaged from the runaway lighthouse and a hexagonal screwpile lighthouse refabricated at the Lazarretto Point Depot, the new Hooper Strait Light opened in 1882. The light remained manned until 1954 when it was automated and the house was boarded up. In the 1960s, as the Coast Guard was replacing former screwpile cottages with skeleton tower lights, the newly formed Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum worked with the Historical Society of Talbot County and the federal government to move the lighthouse to the museum’s campus where it stands today, a proudly restored vestige of a former era.

Hoopers Straight Lighthouse and skipjack pushboat, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

Smithfield Station Courtesy of Ron Pack, Smithfield Station

Image by Sheally

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