Saving The Light

by John McBryde

As much as Richard Beck admired, even treasured the Morris Island Lighthouse, he didn’t have the time or means to help save it.

The lighthouse, which Beck calls “South Carolina’s most visible tie to maritime history,” was built in 1876 off Folly Beach, S.C. (pop. 2,116). It now stands 1,600 feet offshore because of erosion to the island on which it once stood, and for a while all Beck could do was watch the structure slowly sink.

But then he attended a meeting at which the agenda was just that: saving the Morris Island Lighthouse.

“I could see how much love these people had for the lighthouse. It was really infectious,” says Beck, a dentist who once served on the Folly Beach city council and was the town’s mayor in the 1980s.

That very night in 1999 Beck joined efforts with the group, Save the Light Inc., a grassroots organization formed in 1996 by concerned citizens from Folly Beach, Charleston, and other towns along the South Carolina coast. Beck is now co-chairman of the group.

Standing in ominous-looking waters at the northern tip of Folly Beach, amid signs sternly warning against swimming, the current lighthouse actually is the third such structure to occupy this location. The first was built in 1767, with a taller one later constructed in 1838. At the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861, the second lighthouse was destroyed to prevent its use by Union troops as a lookout tower.

Studies completed on the condition of the lighthouse’s foundation show the structure can be saved with a series of interconnected steel sheet-pile cylinders—known as a cofferdam—to be constructed around the foundation. This will hold back the ocean waters that now lap at the lighthouse—and will, in effect, create a new island on which the structure will stand.

Save the Light and other interested groups put their heads and money together to buy the lighthouse from a private party for $75,000 in 1998. To pry loose federal funds they turned title of the light over to the state Department of Natural Resources, which in turn gave Save the Light a long-term lease to oversee its preservation.

Now Save the Light is raising $5 million for engineering studies and repair costs by hosting half-marathons, holding auctions, and selling T-shirts, among other things. “You name it, we’ve done it,” says Robert New, who co-chairs the preservation group with Beck.

Construction is scheduled to be completed by 2004, New says. “There’s a sense of urgency,” he adds, “because you never know if the next major storm could cause the lighthouse to fall into the sea. It’s a race against time.”

The lighthouse “is a landmark for the people here,” says Mayor Vernon Knox. “After Hurricane Hugo (which hit Charleston with 138 mph winds in 1989), we could see the lighthouse was still standing. It gave us inspiration and sort of let us know that everything was going to be all right.”

Of all those who comprise the Morris Island Lighthouse legion, Johnny Ohlandt is perhaps most knowledgeable of the beacon’s history—having been part of it for most of his 72 years.

“When I was a kid, my dad would go out to the area and surf fish for channel bass,” recalls Ohlandt, who takes his boat out to the lighthouse as often as he can. “I’d go with him, but I’d go and visit with the lighthouse keeper and play with his kids. This was back in the 1930s, when the compound around the lighthouse was still standing.

“I have a lot of great memories. The lighthouse is such an icon. It’s a part of our history.”

John McBryde is a regular contributor to American Profile.

first appeared: 3/30/2003