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Prices Creek Lighthouse North Carolina Lighthouses Restoration
   
This rather decrepit and inaccessible structure is the only remaining evidence of the once-bustling trade route along the Cape Fear River to Wilmington. For years, merchants and mariners had lobbied for lights to mark the 25-mile passage, and in 1848 funds were finally appropriated for eight lighthouses. The beacons along the river were configured as range lights, built in pairs, with a shorter light in front of a taller light. By positioning their vessels so that the taller light appeared directly above the shorter light, the mariners knew they were safely in the center of the channel. The last of these range lights to be built, and the only one still standing, is the front range light at Price’s Creek, completed in 1849.
Constructed entirely of brick, the walls of the 20-foot-high tower taper from three feet thick at the base to two feet thick at the top. The diameter of the circular tower shrinks from seventeen feet to nine feet. At the top is a circular platform where the framework for the lights rested. Originally the range light was fitted with eight lamps and eight 14-inch reflectors. They were eventually replaced with a sixth-order Fresnel lens that gave a fixed white light. Its sister light, located around 700-800 feet upriver, served as keepers quarters. It was a larger, square, brick structure with a lantern room on top and an overall height of 35 feet. Although the first person appointed as keeper was Samuel C. Mason, for some reason he never took up the post, and John Bell worked as the first keeper.
The glory days of the range lights occurred during the early part of the Civil War, when they served to guide daring Confederate blockade runners past the Union ships stationed offshore. Additionally, the Confederate army turned the brick keeper’s house into a signal station, which provided communication between Fort Caswell and Fort Fisher. The Union eventually did gain complete control of the coast, forcing the Confederates to retreat inland. Rather than let the lighthouses remain for the enemy, Confederate soldiers dismantled or destroyed as many lights as they could.
The lighthouses along the Cape Fear River never recovered from the war. Perhaps because of the crippled Southern economy, they were deemed unnecessary and decommissioned. By the end of the century, the rear range light at Price’s Creek had sustained such storm damage that it was torn down and the bricks hauled off and used by locals. Now none of the river lights remain except the front range light at Price’s Creek, which is in a state of disrepair. The lantern room is gone, the windows are missing, and the land is privately owned by the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Corporation, which operates a citric acid plant along the banks of the river. In 1996, ADM plead guilty and paid a $100 million fine for its part in a price fixing scheme in the worldwide lysine and citric acid markets. Consumers thus had to pay more for products such as soft drinks, processed food, and detergents, which all contain citric acid. Too bad part of their penance wasn’t to fix up the Price’s Creek Lighthouse. There is also a power facility close to the lighthouse that supplies steam to the ADM plant.
There is no public access to the lighthouse, but at least it still stands, a reminder of the days when the waterways of North Carolina were more actively used for travel and trade.
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