The Other Daytona, Part 3: To The Lighthouse

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After a stroll on the beach and a soak in the hotel’s hot tub, we drove south on Atlantic Ave. to the historic lighthouse at Ponce De Leon Inlet. It stands straighter than an Alabama Republican on a ten-acre compound that includes nine other buildings that once housed the lighthouse keeper and his family, and a couple of assistant lighthouse keepers and theirs. The ancillary buildings now house a gift shop, a display of frail craft once used by Cubans fleeing the Castro regime, a display of lighthouse lamps, a small video theater, and a two-hole privy behind a locked glass door where the lighthouse keeper and his wife once sat side-by-side discussing matters of deep philosophical import.

Construction on the lighthouse began in earnest after the chief engineer, one Orville Babcock, and three companions drowned in the inlet in 1883. The finished product, completed in 1887, topped out at 175 feet, with walls that were eight-foot-thick at the base, a foot-and-a-half thick at the peak. Its kerosene lantern could be seen 20 miles out to sea. Apparently though, author Stephen Crane wasn't paying attention, because in 1897 he managed to sink his ship within sight of the lighthouse. The kerosene lamp was ultimately replaced with a 500-watt electric light designed to revolve and flash intermittently.

Other than the odd shipwreck, life at the lighthouse was fairly uneventful. In his tenure as chief lighthouse keeper (1893 through 1905), Thomas Patrick O’Hagan managed to sire seven children in addition the four he already had. Not much else to do at the old lighthouse of a boring summer's eve.

Anyway, my wife Nancy and I finally got there after noodling our way through the quiet suburban neighborhood that surrounds the place. First stop, the video theater where we learned something of its history, took a gander at the two hole privy out in back, and then ambled over to the main attraction, its brick red stuccoed surface contrasting nicely with the azure sky above.

“I’m gonna climb it,” I told her. “Wanna join me?”

“You’re off your nut,” she said. “But go ahead. I’ll wait for you down here.”

And so up I went, counting each of the 203 steps as I wound my way up the spiral staircase to the top. I stopped to rest every couple of landings, even though I was not particularly winded by the climb. Such a feat, I later reflected, would have been impossible for me in my home town of Denver, Colorado which is exactly one mile above sea level.

There's a balcony on top which afforded some great views of the Atlantic to the East and Daytona Beach to the North. I hollered down to the tiny spec that was my waiting wife, took a few pix, chatted with some Brazilian tourists, and then spiraled my way back down again, feeling exhilarated and totally proud of myself.

Next stop; Historic Beach Street

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