Biloxi Lighthouse

The Biloxi Lighthouse is made of cast iron, which is why it has outlasted so many brick towers on this coast. Congress authorized it in 1847, a Baltimore foundry cast it, and it began operating in 1848 at sixty-two feet. By the late nineteenth century as many as nine lighthouses stood on the Mississippi coast, and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 this was the only operating one. The City of Biloxi has owned it since the Coast Guard deeded it over in 1968.

Women kept the light for most of the years before the Coast Guard took over in 1939, and one family kept it for decades. Maria Younghans took charge in 1867 after her husband Perry, the appointed keeper, died. She kept the light burning through the 1893 hurricane, with several feet of water in the room where she lived. She retired at the end of 1918 and her daughter Miranda served until 1929, which adds up to sixty-three years for the family. The tower was coated in black tar when it returned to service in 1867 to prevent rust, though many coastal residents read it as mourning for Lincoln.

Camille destroyed the keeper's house in 1969, and the tower came through Katrina with a flag draped over its railing. A restoration of more than $400,000 ended with a relighting in February 2010. The beach beside the lighthouse is also where Biloxi's wade-ins took place.