Refer to page 10 of Lighthouses Short and Tall for Ship Shoal Lighthouse
This is a splendid example of a screwpile structure. Do you see the keeper’s quarters? Do you see the ladder leading
from the water to the keeper’s quarters? There was a circular stairway in the center column so the keepers could reach
the lantern.
How did the keepers get from the lighthouse to shore? What was the pulley on the left side of the tower used for?
Do you know about lead-based paint? Have you seen in the news a recent problem with lead-based paint? (Toys made in China?)
Think what a job it must have been to clean the red lead paint off of this entire structure and replace it with three coats
of hot coal-tar. This would have been done by workmen employed to help the keepers maintain their lighthouses. The lighthouse
service also employed specially trained lampists to work on the lamps and lenses and machinists to deal with the mechanisms
that revolved the lens or blew the fog signal.
