Wildwood preserves historic Hereford Inlet Lighthouse, hosts maritime festival

star ledger ^ | July 21, 2010 | Mark Di Ionno

[Coleus]

Her print sales number half-a-million, and she has a line of merchandise ranging from wallpaper to puzzles.

"There is something about lighthouses people love," said Donna Elias, a Newark native whose art career started on the Atlantic City boardwalk, where she sold caricatures to tourists. "I hear from people all the time about the lighthouses they love and why. It seems everybody has a lighthouse story.

And, likewise, every lighthouse has a story.

The story of Hereford Inlet Lighthouse Inlet is one of a once lonely beacon of night-cutting light, now being surrounded like a star in the Milky Way.

It was the first building on an uninhabited sandbar. Shipwrecks of whalers and merchant ships around the sandbar compelled Congress to fund a lighthouse. Designed by Paul Pelz, who later did the Library of Congress, the lamp was lit on March 30, 1874. With a white light now signaling safe passage from ocean to inlet, a fishing village was built around the lighthouse. It was first known as Anglesea, home to boat builders and other maritime craftsmen, and a United States Lifesaving Service station.

Over time, the main industry of the sandbar changed from sea to seaside. Summer hotels and seafood restaurants sprang up, then came arcade games and mechanical rides, then motels by the dozens and dozens and night clubs, all making the Wildwoods as we know it today.

[Coleus]

View from the top of the lighthouse during the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse Maritime Festival at the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse in North Wildwood.

 N.J. artist's work focuses on Hereford Inlet Lighthouse in Wildwood gallery (9 photos)

[Amberdawn]

My family and I visited there 3 years ago. A beautiful lighthouse and grounds.

[JSteff]

The one in Cape May just a few miles further south in Cape May is nice too. Additionally it is right beside a small museum and about 100 yrds from a WWII concrete fort/gun emplacement. About a mile away is the ferry to Lewes

Until last year the concrete fort was only supported by it's foundation of dozens of telephone poles! Several thousand TONS with waves running under it. Just amazing. My family says that now, after 20 or so years they finally filled in the sand/earth under it and it sits on ground again.

From talking with an elderly gentleman a few years ago, Rehobath/Lewes has the sister fort and it is fixed up and open for tours!
If I knew how to post them, I have pics. They are pretty cool. Seeing that concrete fort supported by telephone type poles is amazing. The light house is very nice too.

[Amberdawn]

Yes, I have been to both the Cape May lighthouse and the fort on the beach. The museum in the watchtower is a nice remembrance to those who served there and locally during the war. Thanks for the info!

[Coleus]

i’ve been in wildwood and have never known it was there...

[Amberdawn]

There is also a free zoo in Cape May. For some reason few people know about these things. I guess the main attractions are the beach and Victorian B&B’s.