The unmanned reef lights of the Florida Keys were navigational aids erected near the Florida Keys between 1921 and 1935.
Overview The unmanned reef lights were intended to mark local hazards and did not need to be visible for as far as the reef lights that were erected near the Keys during the 19th century. By the time the lights in this list were erected, older lighthouses were being automated, and these new lights were designed to be automated from the start. The lights resembled the older reef lights in having a wrought iron skeletal pyramidal structure on a screw-pile foundation. They all originally had lanterns on their peaks, so that they looked like smaller versions of the older reef lights, but had no keeper's quarters.
The first two unmanned lights in the Florida Keys, the Molasses Reef Light and the Pacific Reef Light, were built as square pyramidal towers to the same plan in 1921. The Hen and Chickens Shoal Light was the smallest of these lights, and the only one built as a triangular pyramidal tower. It still exists, serving as a daymark. The lantern has been removed. A design for a standardized hexagonal pyramidal tower was developed in 1932 and used for the Smith Shoal and Tennessee Reef lights erected in 1933, and for the Cosgrove Shoal and Pulaski Shoal lights erected in 1935.
List of lights Name Tower shape Height above water Image Original lens Location Year first lit Original characteristic Tower color Water depth Notes Molasses Reef Light Square pyramid fourth order Fresnel lens about southeast of Key Largo 1921 Flashing white brown Pacific Reef Light Square pyramid fourth order Fresnel lens about southeast of Elliott Key 1921 Flashing white, 0.4 seconds white Hen and Chickens Shoal Light Triangular pyramid range lens (300 mm) southeast of Plantation Key 1929 Flashing red, 3 seconds red Smith Shoal Light Hexagonal pyramid fourth order Fresnel lens about north-northwest of Key West 1933 Flashing white, once a second white Tennessee Reef Light Hexagonal pyramid fourth order Fresnel lens south of Long Key 1933 Flashing white, 0.3 seconds black Cosgrove Shoal Light Hexagonal pyramid 200 mm about west-southwest of Key West, south of the Marquesas Keys 1935 Flashing white: 4 flashes 0.4 seconds each, 3 eclipses 1.6 seconds each, 1 eclipse 5.6 seconds red Pulaski Shoal Light Hexagonal pyramid 500 mm about northwest of Key West, north of the Dry Tortugas 1935 Flashing white, flash 0.4 seconds eclipse 2.6 seconds black
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