Continuing with Ben Steelman's article.
Salvors raised it in June 1866, and took it to Cassidey and Beery Shipyard in Wilmington where it was repaired and refitted as a lightship and served from 1867 until it was condemned in 1878.
Lightship No. 28 resumed the Frying Pan Shoals station in 1865 and was the first ship to have the famous "Frying Pan Shoals" name painted in big letters on the hull. It had two lights mounted 40 feet above the water.
Other lightships followed, the longest-serving was the 133 feet long No. 115 (WAL-337) built in Charleston, SC, in 1929.
In 1964, the Frying Pan Shoals Light Tower took station. It is a 125 foot tall Texas tower built in Louisiana and manned by the Coast Guard until 1970. Then, an unmanned weather station operated on the tower until 2003. The tower suffered severe damage from Hurricanes Fran and Floyd.
Recently, the tower was auctioned off, amid quite a bit of controversy.
Oh, Give Me a Light. --B-Runner
The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.
