Biloxi Lighthouse

Biloxi Lighthouse stands in Biloxi, Mississippi, beside the Mississippi Sound on the Gulf of Mexico. Congress approved money for it in 1847, a Baltimore foundry cast the iron tower, and it went into service in 1848. The tower is 45 feet from base to lantern room and originally showed nine lamps.

Its best-known distinction is who tended it. Women kept the light for more years than at any other lighthouse in the United States, starting with Mary Reynolds, who was appointed in 1854 with a large family of orphan children in her care. She reported that she climbed the tower during and after the 1860 storm to keep the light going.

After the Civil War years, Perry Younghans became keeper in 1866 but fell ill soon after, and his wife Maria took over the light. She was formally appointed in 1867 and stayed until she retired at the end of 1918. Her daughter Miranda then served until 1929, so the Younghans family kept the light for 63 years in all. When a hurricane flooded the keeper's quarters in 1893, a New Orleans paper noted that Maria kept the light going anyway.

The lighthouse has outlasted many hurricanes, including the storms of 1947 and 1969. In April 1960 the beach beside it was the site of a wade-in protesting the segregation of Mississippi beaches, and a civil rights marker was placed there in 2010. Katrina damaged the tower in 2005 and a restoration finished with a re-lighting ceremony in February 2010. Blue lines painted inside mark historic storm surges, with Katrina's at 21.5 feet above mean sea level the highest.