The story of the Volusia Bar Lighthouse begins and ends with the 300-mile long St. John’s River. The St. John’s is influenced by Atlantic Ocean tides as far south as Lake George and Lake Monroe, roughly 160 miles from the mouth of the river in Mayport, Florida. The St. John’s is wide but there are some narrow channels which are actually entrances to shallow “lakes.” This makes for changing tides and shifting sand bars. Acknowledged by many, the most dangerous shallow spot was the Volusia Bar located on the south end of Lake George near Astor. On the St. John’s, as early as 1827, there were steamboats, especially those transporting troops and supplies during the Second Seminole War, and then transporting Native Americans forced west at the conclusion of those hostilities. The early days of steamboats saw the trip from Jacksonville to Lake Monroe lasting long a six-weeks due to navigational difficulties. By the 1880’s, there were almost eighty US Lighthouse Establishment navigational aids on the river and more than 50,000 visitors per year riding about 50 steamboats making the Jacksonville to Sanford run. In addition to exploring the Mosquito Inlet site, General Orville Babcock became involved in the project to erect a lighthouse at Volusia Bar in Lake George, a wide and surprisingly foggy spot in the St. John’s River. St. John’s
The Volusia Bar Lighthouse River and its entrance into Lake George was critical to East Florida’s transportation needs in moving passengers and goods at the time. Again, this is Florida Post Civil War. Newspapers in the north were gaga hawking Florida’s climate, open grazing lands and agricultural resources plus Florida’s exotic sights and hotels in Sanford and Enterprise to ease the winter woes in the North. By 1883 General Babcock, superintendent of the Fifth and Sixth Lighthouse Districts, proposed a screw-pile lighthouse at a channel of jetties at the site. This is in addition to his work even while he was designing the Mosquito Inlet Lighthouse That important screwpile Volusia Bar Lighthouse is built in 1885 by Major Jared Smith, the then chief superintendent of construction for the Mosquito/Ponce Coastal Lighthouse. And with river traffic as heavy as it was, a powerful 4 th Order Fresnel Lens and a strong fog generator driven signal were installed in the lighthouse. A Fourth-Order Lens is the strongest river lens used. and Lens Orders 1,2 and 3 are generally used in coastal towers like the reef lights or the Ponce/Mosquito Tower. In 1908, the light and the fog signal were discontinued due to a decline in the steamboat traffic and the advent of
The Volusia Bar Lighthouse railroad passenger service Several freezes had also reduced agricultural shipping. The fog signal is again put in operation in 1911and was somewhat maintained until 1943. In 1974 the lighthouse was burned down by vandals. The screwpile supports can still be seen above the waterline.