Old Cape Henry Lighthouse

Cape Henry marks the southern entrance to Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, a point passed by ocean-going ships heading for the bay's harbors and rivers. The original lighthouse here, finished in November 1792, was the first one authorized by the U.S. government and the first federal construction project under the Constitution.

John McComb Jr., one of the architects involved in New York City Hall, built it from Aquia and brown sandstone, following the 1767 Cape Henlopen Light. Benjamin Latrobe, who saw it in 1798, described an eight-sided truncated pyramid. It measures 26 feet across at the base and 16 feet at the top. The Aquia Creek sandstone came from the same source as the stone of the White House.

The light was put out in 1813 so British ships could not use it during their blockade of the Chesapeake. Confederate forces extinguished it again and removed the lens during the Civil War. Union forces restored it in 1863, because they needed it to navigate to Fort Monroe.

In the 1870s inspectors found large cracks on six of the tower's eight faces. A new lighthouse was started in 1879 and finished in 1881, standing 350 feet northeast of the old one. It is 157 feet tall, built of cast and wrought iron, and still carries a first-order Fresnel lens, the only one on the Virginia coast. It was automated in 1984 and remains in use. The old tower stayed up as a daymark and a reference point for surveying.

Preservation Virginia acquired the old tower in 1930 and added a brick lining and an iron stairway inside. The old tower was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964, both towers together in 1970, and the American Society of Civil Engineers named the old tower a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2002. In 2025 repairs used Aquia stone from a supply originally sourced in the 18th century.