The view from New Jersey’s tallest lighthouse is just what you’d expect: breathtaking. It’s perhaps the only fitting reward for climbing the 228 stairs it will take you to get to the top.
The Absecon Lighthouse was the brainchild of Dr. Jonathan Pitney, who many refer to as “the father of Atlantic City.” Pitney first proposed the lighthouse in 1830; the government was late in responding to the request and concluded more than a decade later that a lighthouse was unnecessary. Pitney wrote letters and gathered petition signatures for several years before the lighthouse was finally approved and completed in 1857.
The 171-foot lighthouse (the third-tallest in the U.S.) shone with a kerosene flame through a French-made first-order Fresnel lens, though the kerosene light was eventually replaced with an electric one.
Today the lighthouse is a landmark tourism attraction, drawing visitors from around New Jersey and the country.
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