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Egmont Key Lighthouse
The island of Egmont Key was quite significant in
earlier times. Hernando De Soto and other Spanish conquistadors passed by here
in the early 1500s, and it was a prison camp for Indians during the Third
Seminole War in 1856-1858. Over three hundred Indians, including the famous
Billy Bowlegs, were kept here while waiting to be transferred to the West.
During the Civil War, the island served as a base for Confederate
blockade-runners who traded with Caribbean merchants, selling cotton and tobacco
and buying coffee, tea, and much-needed war supplies. That was short-lived,
however, because the Union Navy captured the island and used the lighthouse as a
lookout for enemy ships. Confederate prisoners were kept on the island, along
with nearly two hundred escaped slaves. Yellow fever visited Egmont Key in 1887,
and a hospital was established. Ten years after the epidemic, it was time for
the Spanish-American War, and a large fort was built on the island. Over one
thousand tents housed soldiers and wounded troops returning from Cuba, but the
invasion never came to the area as anticipated, and the fort’s soldiers never
saw any action.
When the year 1916 rolled around, the island’s military population grew to
about six hundred people, and there were about seventy buildings, including a
school and movie theater as well as tennis courts, brick roads, electricity,
telephones, and even a small railroad that ran the length of the narrow,
mile-and-a-half-long island. Today the massive concrete fort has
been undermined by the gulf and makes an eerie spectacle against the clear ocean
waves. Little remains that is recognizable on the island except the fort, some
brick roads half buried in the sand, and of course the lighthouse.
A few small wooden cottages exist on the island that are used to house
members of the Tampa Bay Pilots Association. These men board large freighters
and guide them under Tampa Bay’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge into the port of
Tampa.
Two lighthouses have been built at Egmont Key. The first
lighthouse at Egmont Key was built in 1848, then
destroyed by a hurricane. Ten years later, another was built and still stands
today. The Egmont Key lighthouse is not open to the public, but you can walk throughout
most of the island and enjoy the beaches except for certain nesting areas. The
Coast Guard, whose job it is to maintain lighthouses, began automating all of
them in the 1960s: Egmont Key’s light was automated in 1989.
The island is a national wildlife refuge and state park. It’s a wonderful
place to a have a picnic or to explore, with its brilliant white sandy beaches,
unspoiled by tourists. In fact, if you go there, you may find you have the
entire island to yourself except for a few pilots and the park ranger, who also
serves as lighthouse keeper. The currents from Tampa Bay in this area can be
ferocious if you’re in a small boat, so be watchful. Unless you have a boat,
nearby Fort DeSoto is the closest place from which you can see the lighthouse.
There you can also visit the fort and enjoy the beaches or fish at the pier.
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