Screwpile Lighthouses and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
For a long time I’ve admired the distinct construction of lighthouses, but it’s the ones that have “Screwpile construction” that I’ve found most interesting.
The first one that I saw was the one at Solomons Island at the Calvert Marine Museum… the Drum Point Light that stood in the waters of the Patuxent River since 1883 … showed the way for nearly 80 years until it was deactivated in 1962. It’s been moved and refurbished as you can see in a photo that I took on a trip down to the museum…
Peeling back the onion as they say (how cliche…)— the Screwpile construction was invented by Alexander Mitchell, but it was the US Army, a then Major Hartman Bache, a distinguished engineer of the Army Corps of Topological Engineers, who began construction of a lighthouse in the year 1848 – finished in 1850 at Brandywine Shoal, Delaware Bay. Construction cost was about $53,000.00
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Tags: Calvert Marine Museum, Drum Point Light, lighthouse, Maryland, screwpile, solomon island MD, US Army, US Tourism
