Portland Head Light

Portland Head Light stands on a rocky headland in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, at the entrance to the main shipping channel of Portland Harbor in Casco Bay. It lies inside Fort Williams Park, owned by the town of Cape Elizabeth.

The lighthouse was completed in 1791 and first lit in January of that year. It is the oldest lighthouse in Maine and one of the first completed by the new federal government of the United States. The tower has been raised and lowered several times over its history.

The light is automated, and the tower, beacon and foghorn are maintained by the US Coast Guard. The former keepers' house, built in 1891, is now a museum with exhibits on the history of the light station and of Fort Williams. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a Portland native, is said to have often walked to the lighthouse.

The tower is normally closed to the public except on one open day each September. Entry to Fort Williams Park is free, with paid parking in season. The museum charges a small fee and is open from late spring to autumn.

George Washington set the project in motion. In 1787, when Maine was still part of Massachusetts, he engaged two masons from Falmouth, the town now called Portland, Jonathan Bryant and John Nichols, and set aside $1,500 for the work. He reminded them that the new government was poor and told them to use stone from the fields and shore that oxen could haul on a drag. Construction ran from 1787 until the light was finished on 10 January 1791.

The tower's height kept changing. The plans called for 58 feet of rubblestone, but once the masons reached the top they saw the light would be hidden from ships south of the headland, so they added 20 feet. During the Civil War, Confederate raids on shipping around Portland Harbor led the government to raise it a further 20 feet so vessels could pick up the light sooner. Later alterations lowered and raised it again.