Cape Hatteras Light Station: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, National Park Service

Vincent, Susan

The Cape Hatteras Light Station, located on Hatteras Island, is a component cultural landscape of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore that extends along 80 miles of coastline in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The light station complex is a cluster of associated buildings adjacent to the lighthouse that contribute to the history of Cape Hatteras as a navigational beacon. The landscape includes the lighthouse, oil house, double keeper’s quarters, and principal keeper’s quarters as well as the cisterns, move corridor, and historic views. The Cape Hatteras Light Station period of significance, 1870-1936, includes the years of its construction, functioning, and later Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) landscape restoration efforts. Circulation routes and spatial organization of the light station complex also contribute to the historic period of significance The lighthouse was built in 1869 to warn ships of the dangerous shoals along the Outer Banks, while the remaining buildings were added to house the keepers’ family and the operating functions of the beacon. Standing at 193-feet and the tallest in the United States, the lighthouse is brick upon a pink granite octagonal base. The existing black and white spiral was painted for identification in 1873. The CCC undertook beach restoration efforts in 1935 in response to dune erosion, planting native vegetation and building fences to stabilize the continually shifting sands. The light station landscape was relocated in 1999 when the entire Cape Hatteras lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet, an action taken to prevent structural damage due to the eroding shoreline. The associated outbuildings were also moved, and the light station landscape was recreated around the new lighthouse site. The National Register historic district boundary corresponds with the cultural landscape boundary and encloses ten acres. As the Outer Banks has developed as a tourist destination, the Cape Hatteras Light Station has become a recreation area of the National Park Service. The light station is an exceptional site for interpreting the history of water transportation and navigation on the Outer Banks, as well as impacts of the natural and designed changes in a coastal environment. While its relocation has caused some loss of integrity, it also allowed it to be better preserved from the encroaching ocean. The structures and landscape features retain their original orientation and spatial relationships in the more protected area. Views have changed considerably with the move; although still an important component of the landscape, this is not an aspect that contributes to its integrity. Today’s lighthouse setting most closely reflects the later part of the period of significance, the 1930s, due to the existing evidence of landscape restoration and the loss of some original structures. This landscape illustrates the changes throughout the history of the complex, a stable beacon on a continually altered landscape.

Cape Hatteras Light Station: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, National Park Service

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