A famous Maine lighthouse that's been dark for a week and a half because storm damage may soon get a new light.
On July 27, a lightning strike knocked out both the LED lamp and the foghorn of Marshall Point Lighthouse, which has served as a beacon for mariners off of Port Clyde in Knox County for more than 160 years. But today, many visitors know Marshall Point Light and its long, wooden footbridge as the spot where Forrest Gump reached the Atlantic Ocean during his epic run in the fictional, 1994 film. So media outlets around the country picked up news of the lightning strike last week.
Nat Lyon, who is chairman of the Marshall Point Lighthouse and Museum Committee, said Monday that Coast Guard personnel responsible for maintaining the light hoped it would be a quick fix but to no avail.
“They have indeed ordered a light replacement and it is supposedly on it’s way, so that’s the good news,” Lyon said. “The bad news is we don’t know when it is going to show up.”
Coast Guard officials could not be reached Monday about a timeline for the repairs.
"You know, we're fortunate that there was no physical damage,” Lyon said. “The (lightning) bolt came right down through the lightning rod and that was grounded. But it came with such force that it fried the light, it fried the foghorn and all of the circuit breakers that were associated with it."
But Marshall Point’s tower was still open to tour on Monday as part of National Lighthouse Day, offering visitors what Lyon said was a unique opportunity “to see a lightless lighthouse."
Located at the southern tip of St. George peninsula, the existing Marshall Point Lighthouse tower was built in 1858 to replace the first rubblestone tower erected at the site in the 1830s, according to the museum and lighthouse committee. The lamp was electrified in 1935 and automated in 1971. The Coast Guard installed the current LED setup in 2018. According to the museum’s online history page, lightning struck and destroyed the lighthouse keeper’s house in 1895 and the existing keeper’s house was built on the site later that year.
