In 1843, the United States was motivated by the shipping around Cape Canaveral to build Florida’s Cape Canaveral Lighthouse. The building of the lighthouse was completed in 1847. This proved to be a helpful navigational tool for the United States. The first lighthouse keeper was M. O. Burnham. He came to the lighthouse in 1853 and was the lighthouse keeper until he died in 1886.
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During the Civil War, Burnham was ordered by the Confederate navy to take the lighthouse down, to make things hard on the Union navy. Burnham obeyed and took the brick lighthouse apart, while doing so he dismantled the light and buried it in wooden boxes.
After the Civil War ended, Burnham asked the United States government if he could be allowed to rebuild Florida’s Cape Canaveral Lighthouse. The U.S. decided to build a new lighthouse instead of rebuilding the old one. The new lighthouse was built of wood instead of brick. The new lighthouse’s construction was finished in 1868.
In 1886 the ocean started to erode the sand around the lighthouse. A decision was made to move the lighthouse. The project of moving the lighthouse 1.5 miles inland in1892 and was finished in 1896. Florida’s Cape Canaveral Lighthouse has been located at that very same spot for over 100 years.
