Hi, everybody. I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And
this is The Lighthouse Lowdown. This is a fun
episode. If you didn't read our title, we are
doing an interview with Ralph Kugler today, and
we're going to hear all about his life and the
Hillsborough Inlet Lighthouse, where he is the
historian. And also about the restoration that's
coming up. And we need all of you to listen in
and to donate your hard -earned cash. Okay? Yep.
We had a lot of fun with Ralph. Yeah. Let's get
into it. It's a really good one. It's long and
it's worth it. So you're welcome and enjoy. Hey,
can you hear us? I can hear you now. Great. Hey,
what's up, Ralph? How you doing? Good. How are
you? Doing good. Thanks. Trying to get our audio
all set up. We don't often do interviews. Usually
we just sit here and stare at each other. So
this is better. Well, how's your week been so
far? Don't ask. Oh, no. Lighthouse related? Oh,
yeah. Oh, man. Something's good. Something's
not so good. Yeah. Well, I guess we can hear
all about it during the recording. Some of the
stuff I can't talk about, but there's other stuff
I can. Okay. Yeah, just divulge what you're able
to and we'll count those good enough. That's
an extra cool factor in the Lighthouse world.
Yeah. Covert operations. Yeah. It was pretty
funny. I'm listening to the episode. I'm walking
into my office and I go, oh, cool. It was so
weird because I'm walking around and you're talking
about different things. I'm like, this is so
weird. That's awesome. Have you been discussed
or had interviews with other Lighthouse folks
recently? I talked to a bunch of people. I figured
as much. Emily's more plugged in than I am. I'm
the talent that sits across the table. Well,
I guess we can start off, if you just want to
introduce yourself to our listeners and kind
of tell us how you got involved with Hillsboro
Inlet and the USLHS as well. Okay. Hi, my name
is Ralph Krugler. I'm the historian for the Hillsboro
Lighthouse Preservation Society, and I work for
the Coast Guard as technically what's called
a, I can't even think of my job title, lodge
host. Because we are an MWR facility, which is
morale, well -being, and recreation. So if you're
a certain level in the military, you can be active
or retired. Our cottages are available for rental.
And so I help take care of the cottages, grounds,
and things like that. I'm there pretty much all
the time. Nice. That sounds like a full -time
gig for sure. Yeah. So what's your history first
getting involved with Hillsborough Inlet Lighthouse?
What was the first contact and then the growth
of that? So I moved down here in 2000. I can't
even remember. I own history. It sucks. 2002
or three. I can't, I can't remember. And I had
no clue when I first moved to this location that
there was a lighthouse seven miles away. And
as soon as I did, like everybody else, I want
to go there, but it's. on private property behind
a club, so there's no direct access. So it took
a while to figure out how to get over there.
So my first tour there was in 2008, but I was
working a lot of Saturdays, so I couldn't help
on tours at the time. As soon as I got a different
job in 2014, I went right there and started volunteering.
So what's your standing with Hillsborough Inlet?
I know that you're kind of spearheading. Bad.
The red list. You're like spearheading this restoration
process or at least posting about it on Instagram
and everything. So what, how are you involved
with the lighthouse for our listeners? Okay,
so I'm part of the historian for the Hillsborough
Lighthouse Preservation Society. We have the
contract and have had the contract for quite
a while with District 7 of the Coast Guard to
actually maintain the lighthouse, keep it running.
We do all the fundraising for it. Coast Guard
doesn't put any money into the lighthouse except
for the light itself. The last money they put
in was when we switched to LED a few years ago.
That was it. We raised the funds for everything
else. ed dietrich who's our vice president is
former coast guard so he's got we've been lucky
since the inception we've had all the right people
that we needed in locally here that want to be
part of the organization that helped us get things
going from the very start and ed like i said
he's former coast guard he's His family are pioneers
to the area. They've been here forever. And so
he knows all the technical jargon. He knows who
to call at CEU. He knows how to present things.
And so, like, we just got the clearance from
Coast Guard CEU this week, civil engineering,
that our plans to restore the lighthouse are
a full go. Now we just have to raise the funds
for it. Okay. So the Coast Guard, I think that's
typical of what we had heard. The Coast Guard
will maintain the beacon itself. And then anything
surrounding that typically is not Coast Guard,
right? True. That's very true. But what's funny
is they used to be very strict with that here.
But over time, Ken Herman, who's our president,
he lives literally a stone's throw across the
inlet from the lighthouse. I'm just down the
road. And with our webcam. Before we switched
to LED, it's like you just turn on the webcam
at night just to make sure the light's on. If
not, drive down there, switch the bulb out, put
it in. Report to District 7, hey, we were discrepancy
for this amount of time. Light went back on them.
If you have any questions, just let us know.
We'll answer everything. And it got to the point
where they're just like, you know what? You guys
just take care of it. So when we clean the lens
now, we invite... District 7 guys to come up
here who are in the ACE navigation, and we actually
teach them how to clean the lens. Oh, wow. Yeah,
so when we switched to LED, Ray Coleman, who
was in charge of the ACE navigation team there,
was the point person for the Coast Guard, and
they had subcontracted a company to come in and
actually do the install. And they're looking
at Ray, and Ray's like, talk to these guys. Talk
to these guys. Yes. I want to know, but it was
like, if anything happens, they're going to beat
me to it. So, and these guys refused to talk
to us until about maybe half hour before they
were finished. And it was like, yeah. And it
was like running down. We were just almost at
sunset and they just got it done in time. Oh
my goodness. Yeah. They're waiting for the civilians
and the retirees to get trained last, huh? Pretty
much. So what is that? You said district seven.
What does that district look like? Because I'm
not familiar with the area too much. And your
involvement with the local Coast Guard and really
the community. Okay. Well, the Coast Guard splits
the country into districts. We're District 7.
And I think we run from Virginia to Alabama,
maybe. Okay. I think so. Just along the coastline
there. And then we also have Puerto Rico and
I'm not sure, Virgin Islands and a couple of
places like that. So that's District 7. And each
district has its own rear admiral, and they swap
out every three years. Just like everybody in
the Coast Guard pretty much swaps out every three
years. So it's like you just get a good relationship
going. You hope it's going great. All of a sudden
they leave and just like. You know, a good note
for us, you know, going with the next people.
And we've been very fortunate that every time
they do a change of watch, they pump us up. So
it's like, thank you. That's awesome. Yeah. Sounds
like a load of good people. We are very, very
lucky. Yes. You know, you notice in the Lighthouse
community, most of the people are very nice,
very friendly, very helpful. Every now and then
you'll get that one person who's got an ego.
Either they're like on the way out because they're
like the old timers or they don't last very long
because it's like nobody wants you around if
you're going to have an ego and think you're
running the show because not one person is running
the show anywhere. You have to have other people.
You have to work with each other and you have
to keep a good morale. Otherwise, see you later.
There they go. Challenging to, I mean, I was
thinking about history, about the different,
mostly men's names that we've heard come and
go. from engineers that have worked with lighthouses
to USLHE personnel to people that have been named
after or claimed different inventions. It's funny
that any one individual kind of can get locked
in, and it's not necessarily the good stories
that have one name tied to them. Usually it's
the groups of folks that work together. So interesting
to see that still working today. Pretty much.
So tell us, you're saying right before we started
today that your week has been tough. What would
you prefer to talk about or not? Well, OK, so
the things I can't talk about is. Just OK, so
here's a little sidebar. Ken, our president,
he's also he's the most world famous martial
artist that you've never heard of. He likes it
that way. He's a guy who climbed Kilimanjaro.
He's cycled across India. Right now, he's cycling
across America. Certified badass. Without him
here, a lot of stuff falls in my lap. It's like,
Ken, get back here now. The ship is sinking.
Yeah, unfortunately, one of our people, our good
people, is retiring this week. So our museum
gift shop area is under changing. We have had
a couple incidents at our last tour that I had
to take care of. There's just a whole lot of
stuff. It's just like, he's like, Ken, come on
back. Come on. This is too much. It's not too
much. He's like, I just don't want to do it.
Yeah. You can take care of it. Does he have a...
Is he heading somewhere specific or is this just
like a bucket list item that he's... Every year
he does something crazy like this. Whether it's
taking a canoe down the Whitewater Rapids through
the Rockies or he cycled from Canada to Mexico
through the Rockies. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Anything
he can do to push himself. He did something in
Alaska a year or two ago and I can't remember.
That's wild. And we're just trying to visit a
lighthouse once a year. I can't even imagine.
Left behind in the dust. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't
make it a mile. So you mentioned that you listened
to some of the episode, our last episode. Oh,
yeah. Number 75. Talked about. Yeah, I listened
to the whole thing. Yep. All right. What did
we miss? I mean, I'm sure there's a ton that
we didn't cover. Or is there anything that we
just got horribly wrong that you were like, oh,
my gosh, these people. Well, to answer your question
about why Thomas Knight was gone for a year,
it was actually only six months. Okay. So what
happened was they had four children and they
wanted to get a good education for the kids.
So the keeper at Jupiter was retiring. So he
put in for a transfer. They moved up there. Found
out the grass wasn't greener. They weren't getting
a better education. So he came back down and
met with Charles Seabrook, who replaced him and
who also had kids and said, hey, you want to
swap? We want to come back. So he went up there,
looked, thought it was great. They did a swap.
Seabrook stayed there for this entire career.
He was there for a long time through World War
Two. I mean, he was I can't remember, but like
he's one of the mainstays in Jupiter. So if you
ever interviewed Josh Liller, who was the historian
for Jupiter, he can tell you tons and tons of
stories about him. So Knight came back and there
was Barrier Island. There was no bridges. The
only school was in the village of Pompano, which
they could have got to, you know, the old. saying
your parents said, you know, we had to go to
school, you know, uphill. Yes. Point two miles.
Well, these guys actually would have to go quite
a ways in order to go to school. So what he did
as soon as he got back, he converted part of
his storehouse into a one room schoolhouse. Oh,
yeah. He put some more windows in, built the
tables, built benches. And then he went to Fort
Lauderdale to the Department of Education superintendent
there and said. He had to have nine children.
He goes, between us, other keepers, and there's
a transient fishing community right inside the
inlet, we've got more than nine kids. By state
law, you had to provide a teacher. So he sent
a teacher. So imagine this. You go to school
in your backyard. You come back inside, and your
teacher follows you because she's living with
you for the entire term. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So
she lived with them. The terms were, what, five
months, I think? Between four and six months,
what the school terms were. And then she would
depart and they would get in somebody else. Now,
one of the teachers that they brought in was
a woman named Lola Saunders. And I can't imagine
what she was like as a teacher because, you remember,
Cap Knight, he wound up marrying her. He was
like 40 years older than her. Oh, my gosh. Yeah,
and she was as mean as a rattlesnake. So I can't
imagine what she must have been like as a teacher.
It must have been crazy. Very, very strict. But
Cap and Lola, they ran casino games out of Cap's
place for a while. He called it the Club Unique.
He's the only person that called it that. Everybody
else called it Cap's place, and that's the name
that stuck. So they ran, they had a Wheel of
Fortune. They ran card games. They had table
games there. In order to keep doing it, he had
to pay off the mob. So I don't know if you know
the name Meyer Lansky. Meyer Lansky would come
through every so often to get his pay. And they
never had any trouble with the mob because they,
here's your cut. Cap never paid taxes because
he said, I'm not paying taxes to the government.
Screw that. The other mob. Yeah, so he paid off
the mob, didn't pay off the government taxes.
So after he passed away, it created some problems.
The place almost closed down. Oh, yikes. Yeah,
so. And they kept those table games behind curtains
for years and years, hoping that gambling would
be allowed again, but it never was. I can't remember.
Estes Keefe Hoffer, when he shut down gambling,
it's like they had to put everything away. It
was just like, let's keep it there just in case.
Yeah, so there was that. What else was there?
There was something else that you had a question
on. I can't think of it right now. Okay. Yeah,
there's so many instances where I'm like, he
asks a good question and I'm like, I don't know.
Why do you ask me when I don't know? It's so
hard to find accurate resources that, you know,
a lot of our content, we don't state that it's
education, but we try to learn and we try to
teach some other people who might be listening.
Right. But there's so many good stories. There's
so many almost unbelievable. happenstances here
and there so did you do you think of one that
we might have missed uh that that tickles your
brain okay one i didn't share it with you guys
uh 1960 hurricane donna hits and the it was obviously
coast guard run at that time uh the guy who was
in charge was john evil kim on kim i can't even
pronounce the name evo kim'd off his stepson
tim was in school he was only 10 years old at
the time and the bus comes back and it there
to get across the island there's a drawbridge
and the old drawbridge went halfway down and
then they made him jump over and his dad caught
him and mom was away visiting people so it's
just tim and his stepfather on the entire island
for this hurricane so at the time there was a
weather station at the top of the lighthouse
And they fed all the information down to Miami.
And what they did was from the back door of the
cottage to the radio building where I work out
of, they tied a rope and then from that door
all the way to the lighthouse. And there was
from the ocean to the grounds, there was like
now we have sea grape to help with erosion and
block winds. There was nothing like that then.
So at some point, John looks at Tim and goes,
you know what? I think this cottage is going
to blow down. Let's go to the building. So they
did. And then the phone call comes from Miami.
Hey, we need you to go in the lighthouse because
the weather station is down. We need you to fix
it. Oh, my gosh. During a hurricane. Now? Yeah.
So John was fearless. He wasn't a people person.
He wanted to be on boats. And from his stepson,
he said, all the guys who ran the boats that
he was on. They loved him because he was so quick,
so smart that he could pretty much create anything,
fix anything, get you out of any trouble. So
they always delayed coming back to port when
his term was up so that he had to stand for another
term until they finally said, you know, they
found out you have to come in. He has to go to
the next station. So this guy didn't care. I
mean, he was totally fearless. Like he was on
the icebreakers working off the edge of boats,
you know, doing stuff. Wow. Fearless. So. They
go outside the radio room. They grab the rope.
And Tim said, you know, I got completely sandblasted
because my shirt got ripped up. I was bleeding
because just the wind's coming up off. We just
got pelted with sand the entire walk up to the
lighthouse. We got in, secured the door, walked
to the top. And fortunately, the wind was coming
off the ocean at the time. So the door to the
observation deck is on the western side. So they
open the door. turn right, you go north a little
bit, there's a little ladder that goes up to
the upper observation deck, which is right where
the glass is. And then if you go around that
to the south, that's where the weather station
was. So they were protected by the winds somewhat.
So John went up there. He would get what he needed.
figure out what he needed, go back, yell down,
and Tim would climb halfway up the ladder, hand
him tools, climb back down, and then huddle inside
until he came back. No, I need this. No, I need
this. And they just kept doing that until they
fixed the thing, and they stayed inside there
for the rest of the hurricane. Now, they had
built some houses right across the inlet. They
were supposed to be hurricane -proof. Oh, no.
Those things, they just blew right away. But
the 1906 houses that his stepfather thought were
going to blow down, Did just fine. The testament
to old construction. Yeah. It's like I heard
like a lot of the houses in Key West, the reason
why they fare so well, they're made by shipbuilders
who knew how to put all this stuff together.
Is that true? I don't know. But that's what I've
heard from several people. And that would be
a good reason why they've stood the test of time
so long. Yeah, this lighthouse went through a
lot of notable hurricanes in its lifetime. We
talked about just the ones, 1920s. We talked
about those. Yeah, 26, 28. Yeah, but I'm sure
there's a lot of other ones that we didn't end
up talking about. But it's held the test of time,
so pretty cool. Oh, yeah. I can't imagine being
in that environment. Okay, now I remember what
you asked. Oh, good. How did they know the coral
was underneath? Oh, yes. Okay, so. Before they
picked the site, they went to four different
sites and they had this long iron rod. They would
do boring tests to see how far down it was until
they got an actual hard substrate. So this was
picked because there actually was coral. So when
they put the footers in, they dug down to the
coral. They made the forms around that, and then
they put three super long iron pegs that were
threaded at the end. So when they actually put
the footers on top of there, they actually screwed
into those, into the concrete, which is on top
of the foundation, the coral. Okay. So that's
why they picked that, and that's why they knew
there was something underneath there. Okay, that
makes sense. Clearly it worked. Yeah. Yeah. It
worked really well. Yeah. We've had erosion on
our southern side so bad. couple times that you
could actually walk between the footers you know
the concrete base oh yeah oh no it's pretty bad
with hurricanes depending on what side of the
state if they go on the west side of the state
because they're counterclockwise we get hit because
it comes right up the inlet there so we constantly
lose that but then if they go the other way that
the inlet side is fine but we lose our Atlantic
side a bit so okay but I've actually found some
pretty cool machinery down there. They left some
stuff down there after they got done. You can't
tell what it is because it's so corroded and
it's so heavy. We just leave it. I'll just bury
it in under sand. Saltwater and sand will do
hell to the metal. That's cool. I forgot what
I was going to say. You mentioned there's some
vegetation that's planted around to help with
erosion. What does that effort look like? It's
called sea grape. grow in the sand it's loves
the ocean and it's basically like a bush that
grows into a giant tree the more you let it go
out and you can't really kill the things you
can trim them off anywhere and they'll just keep
shooting out all over the place so we got to
keep them you know trimmed down a bit but it
does wonders for blocking the wind and it does
the root system is so strong it really holds
the beach Very, very well. Interesting. I've
never had that before. I hadn't either. Yeah.
And they, they do actually make little grapes
that you can turn into a sea grape jelly, which
used to be a delicacy down here. Yeah. Are they,
do they just taste like regular grapes or are
they kind of. No, no, they're a little more sour,
but you, you take them and you really don't eat
the berries. You boil them down and you make
a jelly out of them. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Throw
some sugar in. I bet it helps. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Yeah. I'm sure you do. Well, you also told us
about, I haven't told Vince any of the extra
stories that you sent over email. So you could
tell him maybe the one with the barefoot mailman
was an interesting story. And I know that you
guys have like a statue and everything that we
didn't get to cover. So if you want to tell us
about the history of that one. Okay, so this
is pre -Lighthouse. So in 18, well, okay, let's
put it this way. And again, there was nothing
here. The Everglades hadn't been shut down yet,
so a lot of the area was still marshland. There
was no trains. There was no roads. There was
no telephone, no telegraph, no nothing at the
time. So if you lived in Palm Beach, which is
to the north of us, and you had a friend who
lived in Fort Dallas, which is now Miami, to
the south of us, you would write a letter. Put
it in either a train or stagecoach and go up
to Titusville. From there, it would go up to
New York, get on a boat, go to the Bahamas, go
to Havana, Cuba, go to Key West, then over to
Miami. What? So it could take anywhere from six
weeks to several months, depending on hurricanes,
shipping problems, things like that. So people
said, you know what? We want some faster communication.
think about now i want now now now well imagine
waiting that long for a letter so the people
petitioned the government well they petitioned
the post office um this side of the state and
the opposite side of the state and they said
we want a mail route and the post office said
that's fine we will hire somebody be like but
you got to create your own kind of subcontracting
business So somebody did and they opened up a
couple of different routes on both sides of the
state. So this one actually went from Lake Worth
to the north of us. So imagine you're hired.
These people who did it did it maybe for a year
or so and often did it like with a son or a brother.
And you kind of trade off because Monday morning
you went to the post postmaster in Lake Worth,
got your mail. You would either walk or. When
you got to water row or if you have wind you
would sail But you would go all the way down
to what was called the Orange Grove House of
Refuge Which is now Delray, which is a suburb
to the north of us You would spend the night
in the House of Refuge. It was run by a keeper
and his family and What these were these were
for shipwrecked sailors and in the southern states
where you're on the coast Where you think shipwrecked
victims might actually survive and make it to
shore. They set these things up And so, like,
imagine you're on a ship. You get shipwrecked.
You make this shore. All you know is I have to
go either one way or the other. I'm going to
run into one of these things. And you knew which
way it was because there were signs. It would
tell you how far it was, like how many miles.
But if you couldn't read, well, they made them
in the shape. The sign was a long shape of an
arm with a finger pointing. So you knew which
way to go. So it's like, hey, I'm going the right
way. Or, oh, crap, I'm going to go this way.
So. um they were all the same keeper and stand
living in the first floor they had a kitchen
second floor was just like 25 or 30 cots just
for shipwreck setups and they had enough provisions
for a couple weeks so they made they worked out
an agreement so that they were going to get paid
and all that for the for the mail route so you
would walk to that on monday or yeah monday spend
the night there tuesday you would leave there
Get to Fort Lauderdale House of Refuge, spend
the night there. Wednesday, you would make it
to Miami. Thursday, you would start the trip
back. Oh, my God. Sunday was your day off. So
I can't remember how many miles you would walk
or row, but it was ridiculous. So there was a
guy named Ed Hamilton. From my research, I found
out that he and his buddies moved down from Trick
County, Kentucky. They settled on the opposite
side of the state to become farmers. Didn't really
work for them, so they moved to this side of
the state, brought three Jason plots on Lake
Worth to farm, built one shack for the three
of them. And Ed was six foot two, very strong,
very athletic, and typically very healthy. But
this October morning, he wakes up and he's...
very very sick and it was his buddies were like
you know don't go he's like no i got a job to
do nobody else wanted to do it so he actually
did it so he gets to orange grove first night
sick comes down to hillsborough inlet second
day nobody hears from him again oh no so his
buddies go to on friday sorry saturday they go
to uh the orange grove house of refuge because
they want to meet with him and walk him back
to see if he's still sick maybe they can carry
the mail for him or you know help him back one
way or the other keeper like him he never came
you're like what are you talking about he hadn't
showed up so they went back home told the postmaster
what it that never got there so they went to
go look for him so They get to Hillsboro Inlet.
Now, remember, I said it was on the higher ground
where the lighthouse is. And so where you walk.
OK, so let me let me back up a little bit here.
They're called barefoot mailmen because. You're
the the post office issued them a machete, a
hat and a mailbag. You supply your own rifle
gun. whatever else. And the machete was to hack
out a path. Well, the first guy who did is like,
why should I do that? I can just take off my
shoes, roll up my pants, walk in the hard pack
of the beach, make it nice and easy. There were
caves there in case it rained. You could hop
in there and just, it was a much easier path.
Plus the house of refuge is right on the beach.
Okay. Why hack a path? Yeah. So, so when his
buddies got down to Hillsboro, The closer they
got, it had been raining for the past couple
of weeks. Water level was high. The Everglades
were overflowing. What's in the Everglades? Alligators.
What's in saltwater? Crocodiles. The inlet was
ringed by mangroves at the time. And so the closer
they got, they actually started seeing gators
up on the high ground sunning themselves. They
saw crocs on the beach. you know saw tracks everywhere
they get to the mangroves they look they see
the boat is on the opposite side of the inlet
they see all the beds closed mailbag hat machete
rifle everything hanging in the mangroves oh
no so obviously they figured out somebody had
took the boat gone the opposite side he tried
to swim across and he was eaten alive so what
they did was They would clear the mangroves.
One guy would shoot them, and they gutted them.
I thought he was a bachelor. Well, a couple years
ago, I got an email. Hi, I am Tony blah, blah,
blah. I am Ed Hamilton's great, great, great,
great, great grandson. Oh, my gosh. Exactly.
I'm like, wait a minute, what? He was married?
He had a kid? I'm like, okay, so. He had never
been on site before, so I let him on site and
met with him and everything. So he told me that
through family lore that they gutted around 30
crocs and gators trying to find his remains,
and they didn't find him. But the Hamilton family
kept all of his stuff, and what survived was
the hat, the mailbag, the machete, which the
family had donated to the Smithsonian. He still
had the rifle, but the wood had rotted away and
it was in two pieces. And he's like, you know,
I think I'm going to get it restored and put
in the Smithsonian. So end of last year, he shows
up one day and I'm at work and I get a call from
the guard gate. I'm like, yeah, let him in. And
so he brought his wife with this time. So telling
some stories. And I'm like, so did you ever get
that rifle restored? He's like, no. I swear I'm
going to do it this time, and I'm going to donate
it to a Smithsonian, too. Okay, cool. So now
back to the saga of Ed. In the Old West, what
happened if you stole cattle? What happened if
you stole a horse? They would hang you. Yeah,
not good. Same thing with these boats. If you
steal one of these, they could hang you. So on
the Tuesday when Ed was supposed to show up in
Fort Lauderdale, the Keeper of the House of Refuge...
saw somebody wandering around. There's nobody
here. And anybody that is here, I know. So he
went up and approached them. And he was acting
very jittery and didn't want to answer questions.
And he said, oh, no, no, I got across the inlet
with some fishermen. So he's like, well, I had
no reason to keep them, so let them go. They
actually found him, arrested him, took him up
to Tallahassee to put him on trial. Excuse me.
Unfortunately, they had... Not enough evidence
to convict him. He got off with it. Yeah, so
that's the story of Ed. So the pioneers of Lake
Worth put a monument up to him, just a small
one. And it's funny because one of the guys who
put it there wound up being the husband of one
of the lighthouse keeper's daughters, who has
a son who is still one of our volunteers. Oh,
my gosh. That's incredible. Yeah, it's pretty
cool. And so the Barefoot Mailman. was never
actually called that until there was a guy named
edward pratt who wrote a book and became a movie
called the barefoot mailman so he's the one who
coined the phrase but then there was a barefoot
mailman hotel down here and all barefoot mailman
everything blah blah caught on so yeah so they
had a commissioned a statue for the hotel made
out of stone that went from the ground to the
roof back to the ground to the roof there's a
fire in the building they took it down Moved
it to, when the hotel shut down, they moved it
to Hillsborough Beach Town Hall. The woman who
was the mayor of Hillsborough Beach at the time
was also president of the Hillsborough Lighthouse
Preservation Society. When they wanted to move
that out and put a brass one there, or bronze,
sorry, a bronze one there, she spearheaded the
effort to move it to Hillsborough Lighthouse.
Got it passed. And then we just kept updating
it until it just, it fell apart. We sold it to
a dive company for a dollar. They went out and
sunk it as an artificial reef. We got a bronze
one, replace it. So that's the picture that you
see that I sent you. Very cool. It's so funny.
The stuff that happens around a lighthouse. Like
we talk a lot about like even caps place, how
it's related, but not like directly to the lighthouse.
So many very interesting stories that happen.
Oh, okay. Here's another one. In 1941, I think,
or 1940, January 1940, our keeper was Warren
Bennett. Right before he got the position, he
was in the hospital. He was recovering from some
illnesses. One of the vice admirals asked him,
because he knew him, came to visit him and goes,
hey, how would you like an easy duty? Lighthouse
duty. He's like, I can live with my family on
site. Easy recovery place, blah, blah. Great.
Well, shortly thereafter, World War II breaks
out. Easiest job in the world becomes the hardest
eight years of his life. So right before we entered
the war, though, or was it right after? Whatever.
He had to run security detail. There was no Secret
Service yet. Churchill flew from England to D
.C., from D .C. down to Palm Beach. Palm Beach
got in a car, drove down to the Hillsborough
Mile to stay in the Secretary of State's house.
He had a house on the Hillsborough Mile. There
he met up with FDR, Bull Halsey, and a couple
other important people. So Warren Bennett had
actually met FDR years before. He remembered
him, asked him to run security because he owns
Coast Garden. So he actually ran security detail
for the week that they were down there, which
was just, you know, a stone's throw from the
lighthouse. And so Caps Place provided all the
food for those guys. So they had the courier
going over. And to get to Caps Place at the time,
there was a road which is now A1A. You would
park across, you'd flash your lights, and somebody
would throw a boat over, get you, and take you
back. So this one day, this little kid who's
rowing the boat is told, hey, okay, we got some
VIPs coming today. Take the boat, stay on the
other side. Don't come back over unless you see
me waving to you and flashing. And the kid didn't
know who these people were. Turns out it's, you
know, FDR, Churchill and all those guys. So he
rows them over, rows them back. That kid. was
the grandson of Thomas Knight. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
So his father, Burnham, was actually one of the
first charter fishing captains in our area. He
took his first charter out at 12 years old. Oh,
my. His father went with him, of course. But
he knew how to boat. He knew where all the fishing
spots were. Of course, fish were abundant at
the time. And he became a charter fisherman.
And so, yeah, his son actually kind of took over.
that so yeah wow that's so interesting and cap's
place is still there it's yes it is how would
you describe it today awesome really yeah if
you want rustic old pretty much all original
other than you know air conditioning sure that's
the place to go they've expanded on it over the
years but the original section is still there
on the barge but you really can't tell it's on
the barge because you know they they filled landing
around it and everything but yeah it's all still
there that's super cool you know tons of old
photographs in there which are really really
awesome they have them like hung up on the walls
yeah all over the place yeah that's neat and
and you know it really you know kind of like
cheesy you know walmart kind of frames it's like
they didn't put any money it's like they wanted
to keep the rustic feel because so they just
whatever they got because they put it in a little
cheesy frame and put it up yeah perfect but you
know like wood frames but you know the glass
isn't very clean anymore so authentic yeah it's
very a real experience not an apple yes no no
and the people who run it are it's the daughter
of cap's partner so cap Met a guy named Al Hasse.
Depending on who you talk to, it's either Hase
or Hasse. Okay. You know, he named his daughter
Tally, like Tallahassee. She hates her name.
I'm sure she'll love that. Yeah. And so she still
runs it along with some other siblings and that.
Yeah. Okay, cool. That's incredible. So we've
never, at least I've never been down there. No.
Hillsborough area. What's it like generally?
Expensive. very expensive or everything um everything's
gone off yeah since i moved down here at least
um the hillborough mile it's called millionaire's
mile for a reason um and so that's going north
right across the inlet is now called lighthouse
point very affluent then you have pompano or
pompano beach And there you have sections from
very low class to multimillion dollar homes.
And, you know, obviously closer to the water,
you get the multimillion dollar homes. Safe area,
clean area. Unfortunately, you get a lot of people
who feel entitled to do whatever they want. Sure.
So we have a lot of that in the area because,
you know, well, daddy's got money. Shut up. Of
course. But the funniest thing is, this happens
a lot at tours. So in 1930, off the base of the
lighthouse, the district inspector got a granite
jetty built out from the base of the lighthouse.
They had tried some wood ones out along the shoreline
to help prevent erosion. They just kept breaking
apart. the district inspector always wanted this
granite one and so he finally got his way and
everybody's saying it's never going to work never
going to work let's work perfectly and then it
goes out to the dead reef and then in the 60s
they added more of the the gravel or the gravel
the granite blocks out at the end of the reef
so now they control the flow of water so now
it's a nice straight shot coming in because beforehand
sand would go wherever it wanted to and it would
either shut down the entire operation or the
only navigable water was a little ring around
the opposite side of the inlet so now there's
this what we call a weir which is where the dead
reef is exposed especially at low tide But at
high tide, sometimes you can make it over with
your boat. Oh, no. Sometimes you can't. So the
channel is clearly marked. And you should know
what you're doing just like you drive a car.
Most people, if you can afford a boat, if you're
under 18 or 20, you don't have to take a class.
Really? Boating safety. No. If you have enough
money to buy a boat, here's the key. Don't blow
yourself up. Oh, no. Yeah. Seriously. It's just
like. Before you turn it on, vent out the fuel
area because otherwise you're going to blow yourself
up. That's pretty much all they tell you. Gosh.
So if you don't know what you're doing, like
a lot of these kids take daddy's boat out to
show off their kids, their friends. Bam, they
hit that weir and now they're stuck there. No.
And what's beautiful is like if you wait till
high tide, you'll probably just float off. But
we have what's called sea tow. There's Tow Boat
U .S. and there's one other company. And they
pretty much have a boat that anchors right off
there. Oh, my gosh. And they just wait for people
and wait for calls from boat users in distress.
Because if you buy a boat and you buy a contract
with one of these companies, they'll come out
and tell you for free. If you don't have a contract
with them and they come out and offer assistance,
you have to pay them before they do anything.
Because if they throw you a line. and you grab
onto it and tie it to your boat, legally, maritime
salvage laws, they own your boat. Oh. And a lot
of people don't know that. And they'd say, you
know, you have to pay us beforehand because otherwise
we can confiscate your boat from you because
of maritime salvage. Well, some people just don't.
They're in such a panic. They don't listen. Oh,
whatever. Okay, I'll do it. Then they don't want
to pay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, guess what? The cops
don't mess around. Did you sign it? Did you pay?
No. It's all right. Now we can do. Oh, shoot.
That sounds like an expensive hobby. Yes, it
is. I can see if you're not educated in it, then
it's bound to happen at some point. They go inside
the swim buoys all the time. Swim buoys for swimmers,
not for boaters. You get it all the time. You
get all sorts of people everywhere, I'm sure.
The same type of people everywhere you go. So
speaking of expensive, let's talk about the restoration
a little. What made you decide to start doing
the restoration process? Or like what kind of
did you find out about the lighthouse that required
the start of a restoration idea? So this is actually
something that's been ongoing for at least five
years now. Oh, wow. Yeah, so the last time the
lighthouse got painted, it was done incorrectly.
Oh, no. It looked beautiful for about a month.
And then the rust started showing through. And
then the quote -unquote contract we had with
the painter, they never honored because they
were supposed to come back and do touch -ups.
They never did. Yeah. So the horizontal struts,
they're iron bars. They're probably 8 to 10 inches
across in diameter. And they go from all the
footers and then from the footer to the base
of the actual center cylinder. Those are buried
under sand from probably early 60s till 1997,
98. So all that sand shortened the lifespan and
it just rubbing under the friction, the salt
and everything. And so instead of being nice
and... cylinder cylindrical they've broken down
some some of them have to be completely replaced
some of them can be salvaged so we we also um
incorrectly well i can't say incorrectly but
we got a bunch of the turnbuckles and sway bars
replaced in 2017 right before we painted and
were encoded properly And so a bunch of them
have to be replaced again. Plus a bunch of them
at the bottom were never replaced. They have
to be replaced. So functionally, it's still fine.
Everything still has enough on it. But you have
to stop it at some point because at some point
something's going to fail. So we've been trying
to come up with different ideas what to do. So
we've had a bunch of different companies come
in and give us bids. International Chimney Corporation,
the ones who moved Cape Hatteras. They're pretty
much the industry leader right now in doing lighthouse
restoration. They came out and they gave us different
quotes and everything. And they gave us a solution,
the most low -cost solution, to fix or replace
the bottom struts. So the Coast Guard Civil Engineering,
like I told you earlier, gave us approval this
week to do the restoration. We decided we don't
have $2 million. Yeah. We just had our annual
fundraising gala. We cleared $64 ,000, which
is our best fundraising gala ever. We got a grant
from Florida Lighthouse Association. I can't
remember how much that's for. We do have money
in the bank. So it looks like we are going to
get close to, by the end of this year, getting
enough money to redo just the base. Okay. And
get that. And what we're hoping is that. And
people who like to donate, they like to see what
their donations are going to. So we can go say,
hey, here's a before, here's an after. You can
see we're actually trying to do this. And we're
hoping that it's going to help us generate more
funds. So everybody's always talking about doing
the external. When I had ICC here, I said, OK,
you know, that's great. Let's go internal. There's
some things I want to show you. And so I showed
them and it's going to come nowhere near two
million to. to fix a couple of things inside.
He goes, yeah, but you know, I can see at some
points it's going to be critical. I'd see, you
know, you had water leakage through the old windows.
One of the windows, I'm not kidding. It's just
the bottom part that moves up and down. You put
it down, you can actually take your fingers and
go outside. Oh no. And it's like, gee, I wonder
why we're getting water coming in here when the
wind is blowing from the south, you know, straight
on, it's coming up and over through. Art McKinnon,
who, He headed HLPS for a number of years, and
he was the chief liaison to the Coast Guard during
the initial restoration back in the early 98s,
that era when the lens broke down. He at one
point replaced not all of the windows in the
Lantern, but all the ones that weren't. Because
over years, people shot at them or, of course,
birds hit them and broke. Yeah, exactly. I hate
that. You love that. Oh, I know. It drives me
nuts. So they just used whatever they had. Some
were plexiglass. Some actually had chicken wire
in them. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Some of them just
weren't the right thickness. So he went around
and figured out which ones needed replaced and
did it. Unfortunately, what they used to glaze
it and secure it is broken down. before it's
time so we were getting a lot of water intrusion
there so that was causing a lot of water at the
top and of course water is going to run down
so damage here damage here damage here all the
way on down the line so like i said it's going
on at least for five years and it's just like
you know what we have to act now because if we
don't it's not going to be around for another
100 years so yeah to answer your question it
just needs to be done yeah for sure yeah So you
guys are kind of focusing on like the things
that could be a catastrophic failure before you
start branching out and okay. Yeah. So we want
to get the base done and then we're going to
work from our top down. Okay. And then if you
look at, you know, if you look at the picture
behind me, you can see half and half, half black,
half white. In 1969, it used to be a different.
what's called a day mark. So top two thirds of
it was black. The bottom one third was white
to show off the background versus the sky. So
the white would show off trees. The black would
show off sky. Well, we had Australian pines had
grown up and obliterated the entire white section.
So in 69, they switched the middle black section
to a white section. So we were hosting our Admiral
at the time, we were Admiral McPherson and he,
He's very interested in preserving history. He's
very proactive with, you know, Coast Guard things.
And he's a huge friend of ours. His wife actually
became a lifetime member of our society. You
would never know that this guy, most of the rear
admirals, you would never know that they're that
high up in the Coast Guard because they're the
most normal down -to -earth people. They don't
show off. They don't talk about themselves. Tell
me about you. What do you do for a living? are
you married do you have kids tell me about that
they don't talk about themselves yeah these are
the nicest people and so when we had him in he
goes you know you're the historian you know tell
me some things that you would like to do and
so i said well i'd like to actually go back to
the original day mark now the australian pines
are gone he goes well he goes it can be done
but uh we have to change all the legal descriptions
and you know it's all electronic now so it's
not that big of a deal but it's going to take
some doing Well, it was a week or so later, he
reaches out to us. He goes, hey, I'm looking
at the legal description. Because they never
change it. So technically, you're fixing a mistake.
No paperwork. Have at it. There you go. Oh, my
gosh. That's amazing. Yeah. So when we actually
do repaint, it's going back to the original day
mark. That's so great. Yeah. That's so fun. I
actually didn't even know that it had changed
to half and half. Most people don't. Yeah. It's
such a subtle change. It's so subtle that most
people don't pick it up. Yeah. Back to two -thirds.
That's exciting. I wanted to ask, the base repairs
are based on corrosion in the sand, with the
saltwater, and of course with time. What does
that look like? Do they physically replace members
one at a time? Do they do coatings? Do they do
epoxies, casting? One of the ideas was to sleeve
it, fill it with, you know, sandblast it down
to... base metal sleeve it put an inert substance
in there that's one of the options but the option
we're going to go with is that they're at the
ends where they go into the footers they still
have keys on them so you can actually hammer
those out and jostle them out so what we're going
to the ones that can be salvaged we haven't completely
come up with the idea but we know we are going
to do something with an inert substance to surround
them and we'll get them sanded and they'll look
brand new But the ones that have to be replaced
will hammer the keys out, cut them, slide them
out, put a new one in, probably in two sections,
and then weld it into place. So like a center
weld, and then you won't be able to tell. It's
going to be one at a time. With anchors, and
the anchors are still good to use. Yes. Oh, the
footers are just perfect. Yeah. Not a problem.
Nice. Yeah. You can see the concrete has been
restored several times over the years, but the
footers, I mean, they're rock solid. They have
huge nuts on the ends of these things. I mean,
it's like the threading on these things was just
monstrous. And so to hold these things in place,
you obviously figure. The crazy thing is those
have held up. If you look really close at some
of the. turnbuckles if they're rounded they're
original and a lot of those are still there they
look fantastic if you look at the ones that have
squared section squared off sections those are
falling apart it's like original is holding up
the ones that we replaced are already falling
apart it's like what is going on here So the
ICC guys actually said, you know, if they had
stainless steel back then, they probably would
have built these completely out of stainless
steel and never had an issue with any of that
stuff. So when we redo it, we might be doing
parts in stainless steel. Okay. Yeah. But the
only problem is now you have to coat them in
a certain way because metals can't touch other
metals because it'll enhance the corrosion and,
you know, break things down faster. But they
have a way to do all that stuff. Yeah, for sure.
We even do that in piping systems. Not quite
as cool, but same concept. So you mentioned over
email too that maybe the oil house would need
a restoration. Did you say something like? Yeah,
so we were electrified in 32. By 37, it needed
repairs. So the lighthouse service just told
the keeper, Ben Stone, just tear it apart. So
him and the assistant, Joe Gisler, who's another
character, Alfred Bregel, our first keeper, Thomas
Knight, our second keeper, Judge Isler, Ben Stone,
you could do a full -length feature movie on
their lives, each one of them separately, and
you wouldn't have to embellish any of them. Oh,
my goodness. And you'd be like, oh, my God, these
people are crazy. These people are such crazy
lives. But one of the things that these guys
had to do is they dismantled the oil house. So
what did they do? They just broke it apart, took
it in wheelbarrows, dumped it in the inlet. Oh,
my gosh. So when we get the sand erosion, we
find bricks, and I'll just pull them up. We have
a little brick wall. Earlier this year, we had
so much erosion that entire sections of the lower
parts of the wall had been exposed. So we have
a dredge that's permanently anchored inside our
inlet. They rent the property from the Coast
Guard for like a dollar for 100 years. It's a
great system. And what they did was they had
this huge cranes. And I went to the guy in charge.
I'm like, hey, Woody, you think you can help
us out? He's like, what do you want? I go, well,
we'd like to get these sections of brick wall
taken off the beach, which is going to be covered
up with sand, put back on the grounds. No problem.
So they did it. They put it right in place for
us. And the guy is a wizard. Knew how to lift
these brick walls sections up without having
them break in two. I mean, he just had it down
perfect. Yeah, the guy was a genius. And what
I didn't realize. The walls along the sides,
they were four bricks thick. Okay. Back to another
question that you brought up. Oh, good. About
the fire. The lighthouse would have survived.
The houses, storehouses would have burned down.
The oil house probably would have blown up. Oh,
gosh. Yeah. Because there were 100 -gallon butts
of kerosene in there. So, yeah, that thing would
have blown up. So, don't know what happened.
They obviously just got rid of the oil butts,
unfortunately. They're awesome. I would love
to have them. So after we get the restoration
done, I have to go through a process of petitioning
the Coast Guard and SHPO, which is the State
Historic Preservation Association, because we
are the National Trust of Historic Places or
Landmarks. So we're going to petition them. This
is where the oil house was. We want to rebuild
it, not in the same place, but in a more... advantageous
spot with as much original material as we can
because uh we have granite from the gables that
we can reuse tons of bricks there's more bricks
buried underneath there that we can still use
we just have to get a new foundation and then
find there we actually found a company that does
historical brick work and uh and not necessarily
they're gonna do it for free but at a much reduced
price because of what it is yeah yeah so we want
to get that rebuilt all original as much as we
can and then turn it into a little miniature
museum so we'll get actual museum placards because
i've got i got more photos of the place from
throughout the years that we can do a timeline
with keepers photos and just i want to do a timeline
throughout the whole thing that would be so and
then so it'll be storage for like our tents and
stuff that we use for tours pull that stuff out
and then have another amenity for people coming
on tour days That's a great idea. That's a great
idea. And how cool that it survived all that
time. Just big chunks. Discarded and refused
to go away. So what's interesting is we got those
pulled out end of last year. Maybe October or
last year. I can't remember now. And just the
other day I noticed the bricks are starting to
leach salt out of them. Oh, yeah. So I'm like,
I didn't put. Didn't take that into consideration
that the bricks are porous and they were salt.
So now you'd go out there and wash them off to
get, make sure as much salt comes out of them
as they possibly can. Yeah. So like the individual
bricks, they're fine. I haven't seen any salt,
but the actual sections of a wall, if you sit
on them, you'll get up here all chalky. That's
so interesting. Yeah. That's really cool. I would
not have thought of that. Well, cool. So I guess
another big question. I don't know if you'd have
an answer to this at this point, but. When do
you think, if you were able to do all of the
restoration projects you want on the lighthouse,
how long do you think that it would take you
guys? I'm going to say probably five years. Okay.
Wow. Yeah, because you can't work during hurricane
season. You have to raise the funds. And once
you have the funds, the actual work part of it
won't take that long to do. It's just you have
to juggle hurricane season with us. I never considered
that. Is that like a rule or is it just like
people won't? set up scaffolding and do all this
work if it's hurricanes. Well, they will, but
now it's going to cost you more because they
have to take it down if they know a hurricane's
coming. So now you just double your cost. Oh,
my gosh. Yeah. We're in the middle of Kansas,
so we don't have that problem. Hey, tornadoes,
though. That's true. We sure do. Oh, you forget
about those. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, Ralph, you're
the historian. We've talked to a couple of historians,
and it's always a pleasure because you're such
good storytellers. You know, it's fun that you
have the story in mind and then also the passion
behind it, right? You can go press play on your
YouTube video and it's usually not that way,
but good people usually have those stories with
them. What was your life like before getting
involved with the Lighthouse? I mean, is this
just you and then here you are at the Lighthouse
or did you kind of fall into this all at once?
I'm going to say divine intervention because
there's no way I could have planned this. I went
to my first Lighthouse. I grew up in Chicago.
And first lighthouse I went to was Chicago Harbor.
I can't remember if it was Boy Scouts. I can't
remember if it was a school. All that stuff escapes
me. But I remember being on the boat. We actually
pulled up to the Harbor Lighthouse, got out.
I think they just recently, not didn't commission,
but they sent everybody out. So it was automated.
So there was still kitchen stuff in there. There
were still bedrooms in there. And I'd walk in
there and I'm like, oh my God, you can live in
this place? And there's a kitchen? You can fish
off? I'm like, can you have a dog here? Because
I'm going to live here. And then you walk up
and you see the light. I'm like, oh my God. Whoever
was in charge of our group heading in with somebody
to get us in there, I remember he was fascinated.
I wish I could remember who it was, though. He
was fascinated. I was fascinated with it. Everybody
else was wanting to go out and throw rocks into
the water. Yeah. And I'm like. I could live here.
This is so cool. But growing up in the Midwest,
not a whole lot of lighthouses. Went to school
for athletic training at Eastern Illinois. Went
to grad school at Syracuse as a graduate assistant
athletic trainer. More access to lighthouses
out there in New York. Got my first job working
in minor pro hockey right in town. The plan was
to try and work up to the NHL. Almost got there
a couple of times, but I could also see things
were happening where it wasn't going to happen
within a certain time period. And I was going
to lose my job because I could see contracts
were changing. And the farm team I was working
for, you know, they're franchises. Most of the
parent clubs don't own the franchise. Whoever
they sign a contract with is who goes. Like I
originally started working there for Vancouver.
They left. I wound up working for Columbus. Could
see things weren't working out. Knew that they
were going to leave. Kind of had a feeling Tampa
was going to come in. They actually did. And
when they did, they gassed everybody. The equipment
guy, he'd been with them since they moved from
Hamilton to Syracuse. Had over a thousand games.
Didn't care. See you later. Oh, man. Yeah. Fortunately.
Syracuse just started a women's hockey team,
so he's one right there. Shorter season, less
work. Yeah. Made in the shade. So he got very,
very lucky. My parents still lived in Chicago.
They spent the winters down here in Stewart,
which is north of us. My sister. was in miami
then she moved over to the naples area on the
west coast she already had one kid another kid
was coming on the way and i didn't want to be
the uncle that nobody knew so i'm like you know
i'm out came down here you know finding a job
wasn't great uh wound up working in physical
therapy centers stayed in medical became fascinated
with south florida history there's a book that
my wife gave me uh of course now i can't think
of the name of it A Pioneer's Tale or something
like that. It's fiction, but it's all based on
South Florida history. Florida, I'll never remember.
That's it. People who read it say it's one of
the best books they've ever written. Wow. They've
ever read. This guy wrote a bunch of books, but
this is the best one by far. And I got hooked
on Florida history. And I just started reading
up everything I could. I was trying to find anything
about Hillsborough's history. And anything you
find online, what I eventually found out, most
of it's wrong. Most of the information is completely
wrong. And so when I started volunteering, there
was a historian, Hib Castleberry. He's a pioneer
in Florida lighthouse preservation. He was already
up in his upper 80s. And I said, Hib, you know,
if I'm working these tours, I'd like to be able
to talk to people and give them the real answers.
So he gave me this little. sheet of stuff i'm
like well this is great but it doesn't answer
a lot of questions because well you know at one
point i went to the national archives and made
some photocopies they're in our storage i'm like
we have a storage facility yeah here's the combination
going so i spent hours in there going through
stuff and and i'm like finding some really cool
documents and then i found some two that were
legal size and i was like it was it was copies
of handwritten writing i'm like I haven't read
cursive writing in 20 years. I'm like, I'm trying
to make head or tails out of it. All of a sudden,
it comes back to me and I'm reading, oh, these
go together. I'm like, oh, I'm reading across
a book here. And it's the first two pages of
the very first log book. Oh my gosh. And it's
signed by Alpha Brigel at the bottom. So I call
Hib up. I'm like, Hib, where's the rest of this?
He goes, I only had a couple, you know, a handful
of quarters. I only made, I'm like. Oh my. So,
I contacted U .S. Lighthouse Society. They gave
me Candace Clifford's information. She's like,
I would love to do research for you here at the
National Archives because I'm going to work for
U .S. Lighthouse Society as a historian. I'm
like, here's somebody that actually you can hire
her to. So I started hiring this lady and she
got me copies of everything from the archives.
Cool. So then I was like, well, this is expensive.
So yeah, so I contacted the Coast Guard. I read
a museum that I could find that had stuff and
they would send you stuff, no problem. Went to
Miami, to Jupiter, and every spot in between
that had historical society, museum, or a library
that had old records, made copies of everything.
And I just, once I started reading that logbook,
it's like, the addiction just took hold and like
this is what i'm gonna do now i don't know how
i'm gonna do it but i'm somehow gonna do this
for a living and when i got out of medical you
know which is a long story i'm just so happy
i'm out of that nonsense it's like now i have
the opportunity here because i was they shut
down our office and i had pay coming for six
months i think it was so i can actually kind
of create my own career now yeah so i started
volunteering at pompano beach historical and
then they started paying me i got on more with
u .s lighthouse society they started paying me
and with all the information that i had gathered
i wrote a book about the lighthouse and because
i did that uh the guy who actually hired me for
the coast guard he knew about me for a couple
years and he goes The job is getting too much
for the one person that's working there. We want
to hire a second person on there. Do you have
any interest? Heck yeah. I'm like, well, I was
actually going to say, you know, if she retires,
can I get her job? He's like, well, no, we're
trying to. And so it took a year and a half,
two years for them to government, you know, to
approve it. But I want somebody who knows the
history, preserves the history, loves the history,
can share that with our guests. And so it's not
just, you know, we don't know. Yeah. I want somebody
who knows. So by writing the book, by doing all
this, I didn't plan this. Somebody else planned
it for me. Yeah. And I just followed the steps.
So that's how I got into the whole thing. That's
awesome. Just walking into that lighthouse for
the first time. Yeah. Kept that for a couple
of years. Yeah. And back to it. Totally lucked
out. That's incredible. It's also having to be
really like tenacious that you're like, I'm going
to go, I'm going to, Check every single place
from here to there. Try and figure out all the
information, especially like a lot of people
would be like, oh, there's not more information.
OK, I'll like I'll just let that die. But it's
commendable that you're like, that's not good
enough for me and I'm going to figure it out.
But when you find things that are wrong, it's
like you want to fix them. And so it's an addiction
every time. It's like Christmas every time I
find something new. Like I got. some of the personnel
files from the National Archives in St. Louis.
And I actually had, I reached out to him and
I said, these are the files I want pulled. I'm
going to be here these dates. And I'm, you know,
got my flight, got my hotel, got my car, all
ready to go. COVID hits. Oh. I'm like, son. So
now we're the U .S. Lighthouse Society, Craig
Anderson, who runs the... A lot of the keepers.
If you think I'm a lighthouse nerd with Hillsborough,
he is the ultimate lighthouse nerd when it comes
to keepers and lists. He's got everything. Oh,
my gosh. He sent me a PDF of stuff in Excel.
And I'm looking through all these names like,
oh, my gosh. And I'm just scrolling and scrolling
and scrolling. And then I realized it's only
one tab. That's for the first district. So he's
got every, I'm like, Oh my, he is phenomenal.
And he is, he's a honey badger when it comes
to finding out stuff with that. And so he's got
somebody down there and he's, it's his goal to
get every single lighthouse keepers personnel
file into our archives. And so it's like, so
I don't have to go. Thanks, Greg. A man with
a spreadsheet. Yeah. And he's phenomenal at keeping
that thing up. I don't know how he finds some
of the stuff he does. He finds photographs and
he is tenacious. He's awesome with that stuff.
That's so cool. Yeah. That's awesome. We keep
meeting people in the community and I keep hearing
all these awesome, resounding things. And it's
a little off track, but I was in a men's group
last week. We were talking about different challenges.
And one of the things. that came out of me i
was talking to another young guy was he's talking
about doing something new i was like doing something
new is is brave because i feel like you don't
have to you know maybe you go to high school
maybe you go to college maybe you're you know
through some process and now you're new into
something but most people will never do anything
new again they'll they'll stay this is what i
am this is what i do or maybe this is what i
used to do but you know a lot of folks like yourself
where you took a risk with those six months of
pay instead of just sticking with what you were
doing and maybe being, I won't speak for your
experience, but in a new experience that wouldn't
be that new, you know, here you are these years
later telling the stories. It's really, it's
incredible. And enjoying it. Yes. That's awesome.
The most important part. Are you, it sounds like
you're involved with giving the tours as well.
Yeah, we don't. You know, tours is kind of a
misnomer. We don't do guided tours because we
don't, we really don't have the staff and we
don't really have that kind of a setup for it.
So if you come to one of our tours, you become
a member and you can become, most people do it
for a year. So you pay one time. It's like 35
or like 50 for one person. But if you do a family
of four, it's much less. But you pay once, you
get 12 tours out of it. Oh, wow. And what you
do is you hop on the boat. So we have to charter
a boat, a dive boat. And they bring you to the
grounds. And then you've got the lighthouse.
We have the brick thing, the brick patio. We
have people who tell the story of the Barefoot
Mailman. We have people floating around who give
other stories. We let you see the cottages, but
you can't go in because they are rented out by
military people. I mean, if I had my way, we'd
push the sea grape out, rebuild the original
keeper's cottage, and turn that into a museum,
too, and a storehouse. But I don't get everything
I want, unfortunately. We tried doing guided
tours, but people really weren't paying that
much attention. It's kind of a waste of time.
when we can really kind of pinpoint and you're
like, what do you want to hear? What do you want
to know about? And then like, we'll have people
at the top of the lighthouse. I used to be perched
up there all the time and just tell story after
story. Unfortunately, you can only live out some
people up at one time and it got a little long
winded. It's like, you get the radio, send people
down, please. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. So now like
I'll be at the bottom and, and if I'm not doing
actual work, I'll be, you know, try to tell people
different stories about things that had happened
there. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. That's a unique
experience. There's some, we've been trying to
travel and see more lighthouses. There's some
that it's a, it's a wide variety of what you're
going to be able to get. Of course, everybody's
great, but it just depends on the facilities,
the staff. And then of course, whatever history,
like there was one we went to where Martha's
Vineyard. It was really great. There was a really
nice lady there who talked to us. We're going
to go to the top of the lighthouse. We're going
to take a picture and we're going to come back.
We had a wonderful time. We did our own research
and learning about the lighthouse. Physically
visiting, you really wouldn't learn anything.
You could ask questions, but most people were
probably waiting in line just to climb the stairs.
There's so much more to it when you find the
right people. Absolutely. A little call to action
for our listeners, because you guys are now,
you're fundraising for this restoration. Is that,
they can donate on the. Right on our webpage.
Okay. Hillsboroughlighthouse .org. Okay, great.
Yep. Yeah. So you mentioned, is it a yearly,
an annual, is it a gala you mentioned? Yes. We,
we, we first started doing them because it was
115 or 110th anniversary and we needed to start
fundraising. And so one of the ladies in our
organization said, why don't we try a gala? And
we got to get Coast Guard approval, get things
shut down. And what she created is phenomenal.
Well, we also do weddings on site. And there's
a company called Tents and Events. And they have
this huge tent that covers, I don't know how
many yards, but it's clear. So at night, things
lit up, you can see the lighthouse through the
roof. So yeah, a lot of people who do the weddings,
they'll rent from them too. So we have that.
We have tables, eight or 10 seaters. People get
brought over by the boat. We'll have food stations
around. We'll have a band that plays. And actually
the bassist and sometimes singer is... Sheldon,
who is the grandson of Thomas Knight. He's been
in music his whole life. He's a Beatle maniac.
He does that for free. We pay the band, but he's
like, I'm a legacy here. This is such an honor
to be able to do this. You have the grandkeeper
of one of the longest serving lighthouse keepers
here. That's pretty cool. But most people don't
even realize that. I'll broadcast that around.
We'll have a silent auction. We'll have a live
auction. In the Pompano Air Park, we have a blimp,
a Goodyear blimp station. And you have to put
in four tickets and we get to, they've been very
good with us and they give us two tickets and
we auction those off. And if you, they say the
past two years, if you get $5 ,000 for one, we'll
give you a second set. tickets so this year we
nailed we still got 10 grand just for blimp auction
yeah it was pretty cool and unfortunately inside
our lighthouse in the lantern room you have the
false ceiling inside there which used to track
the heat and funnel it up well unfortunately
i guess my better wish is years ago right around
this time the first gala They were removed and
replaced because they needed to take them out
to get to... There's a ring that goes around
the exterior of the lighthouse, and an iron ladder
actually hung on that, and you could run it all
the way around the top. That's how they accessed
the upper part to clean the windows, access the
roof to make repairs, paint, whatever. Those
pegs go through the double walls, and some of
them had completely corroded out, and it was
in danger of completely falling down, so they
all had to be removed. And when they removed
them, they didn't do a very good job of it. So
the guy who was in charge of the project said,
well, let's just throw them away. So no. So we
actually kept them. And now what we do with those
is we give them to a local artist. And they do
a mural or they do a painting of the lighthouse.
Whatever their interpretation is, it's a pie
shape. And so we auction all those off. So we
have a few more of those to go as well. Cool.
that's so yeah so that brings in a lot of money
um this year we had a jeweler make up a one -of
-a -kind necklace and then with diamonds and
all sorts oh my gosh and then she made smaller
versions with different rocks in it that they
actually sell now uh so that brought in a good
number of dollars for us as well but like all
that goes right you know paying off all expenses
everything else goes into bank account which
is trying to create as much money as we can to
go into a restoration fund yeah of course so
we do that every year that's the only time of
year we actually open the lantern room i'll sit
at the top next to the lens and let people come
up one at a time up the stairs they get face
to face with the lens oh my gosh so i sent you
a picture that one night of where i was and that
that was the night of the gala yeah I was riddled
with jealousy. Oh, those people don't know what
they have. When is the gala? Is it? It's in March.
March. Yeah. The weekend changes like March 8th,
1907 was our first day of service. So we try
and get as close to that date as possible. Yet
the first year we did gala and then public tour
the next day. And the next day, nobody wanted
to get out of bed. We're not going to do it on
the same weekend anymore. So we're going to list.
One week in between at least. And it's nice.
The boat kind of adds like that. It's an exclusive
like event and like really cool. Is that you
have to take a boat to get there every day? Yes.
No, no. We get to drive through the Hillsborough
club because we have a nice working relationship
with them, but our guests that come for tours
and things like that, they have to come on the
boat. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Part of the fun.
Yeah. It is good, but it also isn't good. You
know, It's good because the Coast Guard gets
to maintain it as a recreation facility for military
people and secluded, blah, blah, blah. But from
a lighthouse restoration and everything, it stinks
because we don't have daily access for guests.
You know, it's like my cousin came down and I
took him to Jupiter. He's like, the day after
being in Hillsborough, he's like, this place
is so much cleaner when we're on the observation
deck and no bird poop. I'm like, well, because
there's people here every single day. We don't.
We have to fight off the birds. Yeah. It's like,
oh, I didn't think of that. Yeah. That makes
it a little tougher for us. Easier to maintain,
easier to get to for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So if you can just drive in, it's great. We don't
have that luxury. Yeah. Well, good luck with
raising funds. I know that's a huge challenge.
We hear it time to time. Hopefully we can help
spread the word a little bit. Yeah. Appreciate
it. We have a small reach, but we have a very
consistent reach. I'm one of those people you're
reaching. Awesome. Glad to have you. It's funny
because I'll be listening at times and I'll be
like, no, it's this. I'm talking to myself. You're
not the only person yelling at the screen. It
just depends on the content. That's so funny.
One of the things I covered a while ago, it's
kind of... it's really too broad, but like lighthouse
tourism was the name I think of the, of the episode.
And we were talking about our first trip we took
was to the outer banks. I love that place. It
was great. It was amazing. It's a long story,
but the people first were awesome. And then of
course the lighthouses, the, I lost a bunch of
golf balls. It was a great trip. And that was
our first, our first lighthouse visit together.
And then, did we climb there? Did you get to
climb? No, because I had broken my foot. Yeah,
she had a broken foot. She was on a scooter.
Two weeks before our trip, I had broken my foot.
And I was like, the first thing I thought, I
was like, I'm not going to get to climb any lighthouses.
Terrible timing. So it was a big adventure. But
I like to ask whenever we get an opportunity,
if we were to visit Hillsboro, the area in general,
what would you recommend going to see? Lighthouse
-wise? Yeah. Well, lighthouse and elsewhere.
Okay, so within driving distance is Jupiter inlet
to the north of us. To the south of us in Miami,
you have Cape Florida. And then you can hop on
a little tourism boat, and they'll take you through
a place called Stiltsville, which is houses that
were in the water on stilts. It used to be party
central. My brother -in -law, when he first moved
to Miami, he goes, this place is the best. The
best parties ever. The state's trying to shut
the whole thing down. If you don't own it, they're
not selling them anymore. But out that way is
Fowey Rocks Lighthouse, which is the lighthouse
that replaced Cape Florida. So I'd recommend
those places to go. Absolutely. You have to go
to dinner at Cap's place at least once. It really
depends on what you're looking to do. no matter
where you go, it's the kind of thing. There are
different historical homes throughout, you know,
the area, which, you know, depending on if you're
into historical architecture and the people that
were like that, that lived in the times. So there
are some of those cool things going on. There's,
you know, again, it really depends on what you
want to, for you golfing, not a problem. Golf
courses everywhere. Yeah. everywhere so yeah
it's not an issue a little bit of something for
everybody oh yeah it sounds like if you have
kids like when i tell people they're staying
in the cottages who have kids they want to see
turtles well just go right up the road about
six seven miles there's a turtle sanctuary and
rehab center and they have these huge fish tanks
you walk around i mean it's not like indoors
it's this whole outdoor thing that's covered
and they have a navy area out there so the tower
you can climb to go up above the canopy to see
the birds and everything. So it's a whole thing.
And when they have turtle hatchlings, they have
eggs of them. So kids love the place. So that's
another thing you can do. But there's a lot of
like wildlife sanctuary things along the area
too. Cool. Florida's on the list. There's lots
of parts of Florida on the list actually. Well,
if you come down and I'm still working there,
give me a call. You get the special tour. Oh
yeah. Wouldn't miss it. No chance. That's why
we do this podcast. Absolutely. That's why I
do them too. So much fun. Well, thanks for chatting
with us. It's my pleasure. Telling our listeners
more about the lighthouse. It's important that
one, we get all the information right, which
is not very often because we're reliant on the
internet and also getting the word out there
when there's a need for a lighthouse to be, you
know, funded or whatever else. So glad that we
could chat with you and hear some more about
it. Appreciate it. Like you have no idea. Because
we don't get a lot of publicity. Yeah. So, yeah,
I mean, there's so many lighthouses and each
one is like trying to do its own outreach. So
it's hard to cover them all, but it's fun when
we find one that we're like, this one's really
fun. And it's, it's important that we get more
the word out about it. Yeah. Yeah. We love to
connect with people. We don't do very many interviews.
This has been a really nice, you have a very
good presence. And again, I love the storytelling.
If you just think of something you want to tell
us. I could keep on going, but I won't. I mean,
anytime, really. If you want to have another
call or if you want to put together one or two
stories, you can do it. I'm a nerd. I will just
talk and talk and talk and talk. This is our
unpaid second job, so we have fun. All right.
Well, thanks again, and hopefully we get some
more people headed your way. Appreciate it. Absolutely.
Thanks, guys. All right. Thank you. All right.
Bye. See you. Thanks for listening. And we'll
catch you next time. Wait. On. The lighthouse.
Lowdown.