Florida Lighthouses

A fascinating shoreline tour from Fernandina’s Amelia Island on the Atlantic to Pensacola on the Gulf. –Tampa Tribune

After reading this book, you might feel like jumping in your car and touring the lighthouses on the Florida coasts. If so, you’ll be in luck, because Florida Lighthouses contains maps and directions for reaching each lighthouse, plus information about tours and fees. –Florida Times-Union

McCarthy covers the construction, history, and operations of the various lights in a most readable fashion … an outstanding self-guided tour. Trotter’s color paintings of all thirty lighthouses are a great contribution to our national lighthouse heritage. –Rear Admiral Richard A. Bauman, U.S. Coast Guard

Every night, from thirty-one points along Florida’s thousand-mile coastline, fingers of light reach out through the darkness to guide the ships at sea. Kevin McCarthy has written the most complete guide available to Florida’s lighthouses, each entry illustrated with a full-color reproduction of William Trotter’s painting of the structure in its turn-of-the-century prime.

McCarthy has collected a remarkable variety of legend, anecdote, and history and provides several pages of background on each lighthouse. Since many of Florida’s lighthouses are open to the public, he also provides a map and detailed directions for reaching each one, as well as the best vantage point for viewing or taking photographs and information about exhibits, hours, and admission fees.