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

Hitchcock, Susan

This cultural landscape inventory (CLI) has been adapted from "Ocracoke Light Station Cultural Landscape Report" (Susan Hitchcock, 2016). The Ocracoke Light Station is a historic vernacular landscape and historic site located on Ocracoke Island of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CAHA) in Hyde County, North Carolina, significant under National Register Criteria A and C. The approximate two-acre site is located on the southwest end of the seventeen-mile-long Ocracoke Island, which extends southwest from Hatteras Inlet to Ocracoke Inlet between Hatteras and Portsmouth Islands. The Ocracoke Light Station, located on National Park Service (NPS) land, is surrounded by the village of Ocracoke, the southernmost community associated with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The station is set back from the marshy Pamlico Sound to the west. North Carolina State Highway 12 (NC 12) connects the village of Ocracoke with Hatteras Island to the north via a ferry across Hatteras Inlet. The Ocracoke Light Station was listed in the National Register of Historic Places (National Register) in 1977. It is significant in the areas of commerce, transportation, and architecture. The centerpiece of the original two-acre site is the 1823 brick tower and cast-iron lantern, the oldest North Carolina lighthouse still in continuous service and the second oldest lighthouse in the United States in continuous service. The tower and the fourth-order Fresnel lens reflect a standardized design used for many early lighthouses built by the Department of the Treasury. The early masonry towers were built separately from the keeper’s quarters and were usually conical or octagonal in shape. The Ocracoke Lighthouse retains its Fresnel lens, and several contributing features remain in the historic station cultural landscape (Clifford and Clifford 2000, 17–18). The layout of the site was consistent with other light stations of the day, where support buildings were clustered for easy access along a northeast axis to the keeper’s quarters. The lighthouse and oil house occupied a northwest cross axis. A wooden fence enclosed the station and walkways connected the various buildings on site. The site retains three original support buildings (double keepers’ quarters, storehouse, and privy) and two historic outbuildings (concrete oil house and carpenter shop). Most of the historic circulation system survives, which linked major features of the station. Historically significant plantings include mature live oaks and cedar trees around the dwelling, open ground around the lighthouse, areas of grass throughout most of the site, and marsh/wetland along the western edge of the site. Enclosed garden spaces do not survive, but the picket fence that surrounded the station has been maintained over the years, although not in its original location on all sides. Congress authorized Cape Hatteras as America’s first National Seashore in 1937, but it was another sixteen years before the park was officially established in January 1953. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) continued to own and manage the Ocracoke Light Station until 1955, when they issued a revocable permit to the NPS for the use and occupancy of the quarters building of the station. An amendment that included the garage, chicken house, carpenter shop, and pump house was signed in 1957, granting the use of these buildings with the stipulation that the NPS keep them in good repair and condition. A revised use agreement signed in 1986 included the grounds and fence. On June 7, 1999, the USCG transferred title of the lighthouse and approximately two acres to the NPS. The USCG continues to own and operate the Fresnel lens (Ocracoke Light Station, HS-1A/HS-1B Buildings #501/501B/503, Accession 191, Catalog 5037, Box 1 Folder 1, Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CAHA) Collection. In 1822, French physicist Augustin Fresnel developed a complex lens that concentrated light into a powerful beam).

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

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