With the recent passage of HB1461/SB674 Abandoned or Sunken Vessels and Waterway Improvement Fund Grants, legislation that supports diverse programs throughout the bay watershed, Preservation Maryland is sharing some of our state’s unique maritime history in a new mini-series we’re calling A Maritime Minute – blogs you can get through in under a minute!
The Hooper Strait Lighthouse was originally built in 1879 to light the way for boats passing through the shallow shoals of Hooper Strait, a thoroughfare for boats from the Chesapeake Bay across Tangier Sound to Deal Island. By 1966 automation and the deterioration of the structure led the Coast Guard to designate Hooper Strait Lighthouse for destruction. With support from the Historical Society of Talbot County and the designated demolition funds, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum stepped in to save the historic structure, lifting and moving the forty-two-ton lighthouse from its pilings in two pieces by barge forty miles up the Bay to St. Michaels, Maryland.
The steel plates and eight-inch steel beams, donated respectively by the Easton Steel Company and the Chase Steel Company, form the support platform atop the piles. The Lighthouse arrived at its final home on November 9, 1966, and opened to the public on May 20, 1967.
This was the first successful preservation effort of its kind in the Chesapeake Bay, preceding the successful move and preservation of the Drum Point and Seven Foot Knoll lights