15. Cape Canaveral Lighthouse
Built: 1843 - 1848Location: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
The Cape Canaveral Lighthouse was originally built of wood. Construction began in 1843 and was completed in 1848. In 1853 Capt. Mills O. Burnham replaced Nathaniel Scobie as lighthouse keeper. During the Civil War Burnham sealed the lighthouse mechanisms in crates and buried them in his Banana River orange grove, to discourage Yankee ships from landing along the coast. In 1868, the lighthouse was re-built of brick and later reinforced with iron plates. In 1893, Congress appropriated funds for the beacon's relocation inland to its present site and the move was completed in 1894. Burnham was the lighthouse keeper until his death in 1886. His descendants continued to run the lighthouse until 1952 when the U.S. Coast Guard took over operation.
