During the 1700s, the inlet between Ocracoke and neighboring Portsmouth Island became North Carolina’s primary commerce route.  In 1713, the island was renamed Pilot Town because many residents were harbor pilots who guided ships through the inlet and into the Pamlico Sound. 

By the late 1700s, the United States Lighthouse Service recognized the need for a lighthouse in the area.  The Shell Castle Island lighthouse was completed in 1798, but was not effective by 1818, because the channel it served had shifted.  Lightning destroyed the lighthouse and the keeper’s house that same year.

In 1822, the federal government paid $50 for two acres on Ocracoke and budgeted  $20,000 for a new lighthouse.  Massachusetts builder Noah Porter finished the lighthouse and keeper’s house in 1823 for only $11,359.

At 75 feet tall, the Ocracoke lighthouse is the shortest in North Carolina, but it is the oldest continuously operating one in the state, and one of the oldest on the Eastern Seaboard. Its walls are brick, 12 feet thick at the bottom and two feet thick at the top.  The exterior was originally whitewashed with lime, salt, Spanish whiting, rice glue and boiling water.

The old reflector was replaced in 1854 with a Fresnel compound lens that magnified light beams.  The beams can be seen 14 miles offshore

By 1929, the site had double keepers’ quarters and an oil supply shed that became a generator house.  These buildings still stand.  In 1939, the lighthouse was consolidated with the U.S. Coast Guard.  The Coast Guard works with the National Park Service and the NC State Preservation Office to maintain the structure.

The site can be visited daily, but the lighthouse is not open for climbing.

The lighthouse that guided mariners well over a century ago stands guard to do the same today — waiting, tall and proud.