Rebecca Shoal Light
lighthouse in Florida, United States
The Rebecca Shoal Light was located on a treacherous coral bank, Rebecca Shoal, 6.2 miles (10 km) west of the Marquesas Keys and 31 miles (50 km) east of the Dry Tortugas.
Overview and history
The bank has at least a depth of 11 feet (3.4 m) and is subject to strong currents and rough seas.
The first attempt to place a light on Rebecca Shoal was under the direction of Lt. George Meade starting in 1854. After structures were washed away twice in 1855 while still being erected, Meade wrote, "I believed then, and am satisfied now, that no light-house structure of any kind has been erected, either in this country or in Europe, at a position more exposed and offering greater obstacles than the Rebecca shoal."
A lighthouse was finally successfully erected on Rebecca Shoal in 1886. It was a 1+1⁄2-story square house set on high pilings. During bad weather, it was often impossible to land supplies or keepers at the lighthouse. The lighthouse withstood several hurricanes throughout the years. The 1919 Florida Keys Hurricane broke the glass in the lighthouse's lantern and damaged the lens. The Spanish steamer Valbanera sank in that same hurricane five miles east of Rebecca Shoal, with the loss of all 488 people aboard.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7301915. Authority coordinates are 24.578, -82.585. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1854, 1855, 1886 and 1919.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rebecca Shoal Light” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.