City: Jupiter, FL

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (561) 747-8380

Address: 500 Captain Armour’s Way

Description: The Jupiter Lighthouse has been guarding this coast since 1860, when it was built by the U.S. Cavalry. In an area that’s a virtual graveyard of sunken ships, the lighthouse has been a beacon of light in more ways than one.The complex includes the lighthouse that you can climb, a museum in a newly restored Coast Guard building offering exhibits on Florida history and a gift shop, and the DuBois Pioneer House, which is currently closed for renovation. The Jupiter Lighthouse, with its dramatic tower of red brick, is the oldest structure in Palm Beach County. There are 105 steps to the top, very winding, very narrow steps. It’s worth the trek, though, because the view from the top is memorable, of the mighty Atlantic, the Intracoastal, and the green lands of Florida. It doesn’t stand on a rocky cliff by the edge of the sea, as do the northern ladies of the Atlantic coast. But this lighthouse does stand on a natural hill of shell and marine sand, at an elevation of 41 feet—which is Everest-like in Florida. As more and more ships foundered and then went down on submerged reefs and sandbars here in the mid-1800s, Congress in 1853 finally appropriated $35,000 to erect “a first-order lighthouse” to mark the reef lying off the Jupiter Inlet and act as an aide to navigation. Although construction began in 1855, a series of delays—Indian attacks and “Jupiter Fever,” from mosquitoes and sand flies ran up the cost during the Third Seminole War, and the final price tag was over $60,000.