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The Port of Galveston, Texas, which was established in 1825, eventually became the busiest port on the Gulf Coast and the second busiest in the country after New York City. Bolivar Point is at the southwestern end of the Bolivar Peninsula, marking the east side of the entrance to Galveston Bay. The first lighthouse on the point began service in late 1852. In 1870 Congress appropriated funds for a new 117-foot-tall cast-iron lighthouse.

Mark Boyt and Amy Maxwell Chase

The third-order Fresnel lens was first illuminated in the rebuilt Bolivar Point Lighthouse on November 19, 1872. The light station weathered devastating hurricanes in 1900 and 1915. With an increase in the intensity of Galveston Jetty Lighthouse in 1930, Bolivar Lighthouse was considered expendable and the light was extinguished. In 1947, the War Assets Administration sold the property for $5,500 to rancher E. V. Boyt. In 2015, descendants of the first private owners of the light station property created the nonprofit Bolivar Point Lighthouse Foundation to address the restoration and preservation of the lighthouse. Amy Maxwell Chase is the executive director of the Bolivar Point Lighthouse Foundation, and Mark Boyt is a founder and board member of the organization.

Bolivar Point Light Station (Courtesy of Bolivar Point Lighthouse Foundation)

Click here for a virtual tour of Bolivar Point Lighthouse

Lighthouses save lives and serve as symbols of hope, and first responders do the same in our communities every day. On Tuesday, February 1, first responders rescued three fishermen after their fishing boat sank off Scituate, Massachusetts. Shortly after 2:30 that afternoon, a local woman called 911 and reported seeing a fishing boat overturn and sink, with black smoke filling the air. She saw that the three fishermen were clinging to debris to stay afloat. The water was 42 degrees and the men were in the water for 45 minutes. Scituate Fire Chief John Murphy discusses the rescue in a "Be a Lighthouse" segment.

Drone footage of the February 1 rescue captured by Scituate Fire Department Lieutenant Erik Norlin:

https://youtu.be/jl4Lq42-plc

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