Cape Hatteras Lighthouse: the tower that moved house
Compiled by Surf Haunts · Updated 2026-09-20
The black-and-white spiral makes Cape Hatteras Lighthouse easy to recognise. It stands near Buxton on North Carolina's Hatteras Island, tall above the surrounding vegetation. The surprising part is that the tower has changed address. In 1999, the whole thing was moved.
The second tower
The familiar brick lighthouse was first lit on 16 December 1870. As the history of the light station explains, it replaced an earlier tower dating from 1803. The older one was demolished the following year.
The spiral stripes came later, in 1873. They served a practical purpose: a distinctive pattern helped mariners identify the lighthouse in daylight, when its light was less useful. That daytime identifier is called a daymark.
It's a nice detail in a design now reproduced on so many postcards. The stripes weren't just decoration, and the lighthouse didn't have them from the start.
Twenty-three days on the move
Shoreline erosion eventually left the tower too close to the ocean for its long-term preservation. The documented account of the 1999 relocation describes a journey of 2,900 feet, using hydraulic jacks and a system of steel tracks.
The tower's move began on 17 June and ended on 9 July: twenty-three days to move something that had stood in one place for more than a century.
Six other historic structures were relocated as part of the same project. They didn't all travel as one piece. The buildings were placed to preserve their relationships to one another, so the light station would still make sense as a group.
Looking at an older picture
If a family photograph places the lighthouse differently against the shoreline, its date is worth checking. It may show the tower before the move. Our photograph was taken in 2014, after the relocation, and gives a close view of the spiral pattern.
Do you remember the move, or have a photograph from before it? Email us if you'd like to share a memory or correct a detail. We'll ask before publishing your contribution and agree with you how to credit it.
Our Cape Hatteras print
Our illustration makes the spiral lighthouse the focus of the Hatteras Island landscape. It isn't a measured record of the shoreline or the tower's distance from the sea. You can see the Cape Hatteras print in the collection.
Compiled from public historical sources and fact-checked against them at the time of writing – not a first-hand or local account. Corrections and memories are welcome; we verify before publishing anything sent in.