Happy 200th Anniversary! April 5, 1824, was the first official day that the original St. Augustine Lighthouse was lit. Notices went out across the country, alerting mariners about the new lighthouse. Originally built as a wooden watchtower as early as 1586, the Old Spanish Tower was reconstructed in 1737 to be a 30-foot-tall watchtower made of coquina. To become a United States Lighthouse, the alterations to this coquina tower began in 1823. John Rodman, Collector of St. Augustine, had written Stephen Pleasonton, Fifth Auditor of the U.S. Treasury, that the location of the watchtower “... was never built for a lighthouse or used as one, but merely a look-out-house. The location is well suited…but a great proportion of the tower, nearly one half, is not sufficiently strong to bear any greater elevation either if wood or stone work.” Only four years after its official lighting, the Lighthouse already showed noticeable deterioration. Rodman wrote Pleasonton again in July 1828, noting...