One hundred thirty-nine years ago close to this week, on October 10, 1886, President Grover Cleveland, dedicated the Statue of Liberty. A huge parade was held in Downtown New York and as the bands and marchers passed through the Wall Street area stockbrokers threw ticker tape from their windows on the participants, and thus, one tradition was established. More important to us pharologists however, President Grant assigned the stature to be administered, maintained and operated by the US Lighthouse Board. Interestingly, this also made the Statue the nation’s first electrified lighthouse.
It can be said with great justification that the Lighthouse Board had always accepted and was accustomed to challenges. Just look at the hellish history of the construction of Tillamook Rock or St. Georges Reef. Determination was the middle name of the Lighthouse Board. But, this Stature of Liberty assignment was “A Whoa Nelly,” and non-starter for many reasons.
The executive wing of the US Lighthouse Board, consisting of some of the best US Navy engineers, senior officers of the US Army Corp of Engineers and experienced coastal topographers, politely asserted that the Statue was, ahem, unsuitable as an aid to navigation. They agreed in principle, that the structure does have a light mounted way up high over water. Yes, it was positioned on an island in the nation’s busiest harbor. Sure, they did punch glass portholes in the torch to increase the visibility of the light (also effectively furthering the corrosive effects of the salt water on the copper interior). However, their concerns were real, many and justified. The light was electrically powered and depended on a generator, a first, and a major learning and training curve for the lighthouse service keepers. Its positioning in the harbor as a navigation aid made no sense. Maintenance costs zoomed to more than $10,000 a year, and Albert Littlefield, a machinist and principal keeper of the Statue lighthouse, became the highest paid keeper in the country at $1,000 a year. All in all, the Lighthouse Service had to be relentlessly realistic in allocating its slim budget for actual needs, and that was to mark the hazards, harbors and landmarks of 8,000 miles of Atlantic, Pacific, Great Lakes coasts, and navigable rivers. For fifteen years, under protest and with frequently unanswered appeals to Congress for more funding, the lighthouse service, its engineers, Littlefield and his specially trained assistants assigned to the Statue, did their best to illuminate and care for the tallest and most unique of “lighthouses” in our nation.
On March 1, 1902, the statue was finally discontinued as an aid to navigation and was reassigned to the US Army command at Fort Wood. Littlefield, and his assistants, were reassigned to other lighthouses in the Third Lighthouse District. Today, few people realize that The Statue, for many symbolizing the American Dream and America itself, also had a career, however unsuccessful, as a sentinel of the sea. The War Department had jurisdiction over Liberty Enlightening the World until 1932, when the National Park Service was assigned to its care.