"Hooper Strait Lighthouse" St. Michaels Maryland 1968

The Hooper Strait Lighthouse stands on its screwpile stilts above the Chesapeake Bay shoreline, white and proud against a dramatic purple grey sky heavy with clouds. A separate bell tower stands beside it, the sandy shore stretching out in the foreground, the wide expanse of the bay visible behind. The whole scene glows with that particular cool lavender light that arrives just before the weather changes.

Screwpile lighthouses like this one were an ingenious solution to the shallow, soft bottomed waters of the Chesapeake Bay — iron legs screwed directly into the bay floor to support a small cottage style lighthouse above the waterline. The Hooper Strait Lighthouse was built in 1879 and guided mariners safely through the bay for nearly a century before being preserved and relocated to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, where it stands to this day.

This slide captures it in its original home — October 1968, sky brewing, light burning, doing exactly what it was built to do.