During severe storms, the light had to be kept in operation 24 hours a day until the storm was over. The most obvious part of the keeper’s duties was to keep the light operating according to the daily schedule, which would vary from station to station, depending on geographic location, typical weather conditions, and other factors. Although a keeper was responsible for making repairs and well as other routine duties, each one also had to be prepared to respond to emergencies, including shipwrecks.
Typically, the keeper’s day began before dawn and ended well past dusk. Coast Guard took over responsibility in 1939.Ī keeper’s job was not quite a 24-hour job, but it could be. The care of the nation’s lighthouses moved from agency to agency until 1910, when Congress created the Bureau of Lighthouses. Lighthouse keepers became civil service employees in 1896. Keepers at first worked under the authority of a local Collector of Customs, though the Collector’s role declined over time as the business of maintaining lighthouses became more professionalized. The Service was the first Public Works Act of the first United States Congress it authorized the transfer of existing lighthouses from the jurisdiction of individual states to the federal government. Most lighthouse keepers as we think of them were employees of the United States Lighthouse Service, founded in 1789.
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