Prospect Harbor Lighthouse and Station, Prospect Harbor Maine

Date added: January 17, 2025

Categories:
Maine
Lighthouse

Light Tower and Keeper'S House Southeast and Northeast Sides (1990)

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Authorized in 1847 but not established until 1850, the Prospect Harbor Light Station marks the eastern entrance to the inner section of this harbor of refuge.

The light station at Prospect Harbor was built in response to the local need for a navigational aid to this deep and sheltered anchorage. Throughout the nineteenth century, Prospect Harbor was home to a large fleet of fishing vessels whose safe passage in and around the harbor was greatly facilitated by the beacon and fog signal at this location. However, despite this apparent need for the station, the Light-House Board deactivated the light in 1859 claiming that the harbor was not used as an anchorage during storms. In 1870, for some as yet unknown reason, the light was relit and the buildings renovated. In 1934 the light was automated, but the complex remains in the ownership of the Federal Government.

Site Description

Prospect Harbor Light Station consists of a conical tower and a detached one-and-a-half-story frame keeper's house. Some distance to the north of the dwelling is a small stone gable roofed oil house. The station occupies a shallow rocky peninsula.

The handsome shingled light tower at Prospect Harbor features a door on its north face and a pedimented window opening on the west side. It was erected in 1891. A covered passageway that sheltered the door and linked the house and tower has been removed. A circular iron walkway with a railing caps the tower. Rising from the middle of the deck is a ten-sided lantern with a polygonal roof and spherical ventilator.

Facing west across Prospect Harbor, the 1891 keeper's house has an asymmetrical five-bay facade partially sheltered by an engaged shed-roofed porch. Its first story is sheathed in clapboards and its upper floor in wood shingles. Four square posts linked by a slat balustrade support the porch roof above which is a large gable-roofed dormer. The windows on the first story and in the dormer employ four-over-four double-hung sash. A brick flue and one chimney punctuate the roof. There are two windows, one on each story, in the gable ends. There are a number of openings on the rear elevation and a small addition at the southeast corner of the house.

Constructed in 1905, the oil house is a typical example of similarly related buildings erected at Maine's light stations. Its gable roof shelters, on one end, a centrally placed door surmounted by a narrow vent.

At the time of its establishment in 1850 the station consisted of a granite tower attached to one end of a stone dwelling. In 1870 these buildings were rehabilitated, and 1891 they were pulled down and replaced by the existing components.