On Christmas Day, 1862, Confederate General John B. Magruder ordered two kegs of gunpowder detonated inside the Lydia Ann lighthouse. The explosion destroyed the upper twenty feet of brickwork and most of the circular staircase. It would be the last principal light on the Texas coast restored after the Civil War. But the lighthouse survived — as it would survive everything the next century and a half would throw at it: hurricanes, neglect, deactivation, and finally, a quiet rescue by a grocery store billionaire who relit it in 1988. Today the Lydia Ann is the only operating lighthouse in Texas with a live-in caretaker. And nobody can agree on who Lydia Ann actually was.
Bricks Lost at Sea
Key Facts
- Authorized
- March 3, 1851
- Completed
- Early 1857
- Height
- 55 feet, octagonal brick
- Original lens
- Fourth Order Fresnel
- Cost authorized
- $12,500
- Land cost
- $31.25 for 25 acres
On March 3, 1851, Congress authorized $12,500 for the construction of a lighthouse at Aransas Pass. A brick tower design was selected. The federal government purchased 25 acres on Harbor Island for $31.25, and Texas ceded jurisdiction in June 1855.
In late December 1855, the schooner carrying the bricks for the tower foundered on the sandbar at the Aransas Pass entrance during high seas. The crew was rescued, but the ship and its cargo were a total loss. New bricks had to be ordered. They arrived in 1856, followed by the lantern room and a Fourth Order Fresnel lens manufactured in France.
By early 1857, the 55-foot octagonal tower and keeper's dwelling were completed. The tower was painted brown. When the light was first illuminated, it became the second oldest lighthouse on the Texas coast and the oldest surviving structure in the Aransas Pass area.
Christmas Day, 1862
During the Civil War, Confederate forces controlled the Texas coast. General Magruder, fearing the lighthouse would aid Union naval operations, ordered its destruction on December 25, 1862. Two kegs of powder were carried into the tower and detonated.
The blast damaged the upper twenty feet of brickwork and destroyed most of the circular staircase. But the lower portion of the tower held. It was badly damaged, not demolished. Repairs began in 1867, and the lighthouse was the last principal light along the Texas coast to return to service that spring.
The Keepers
The lighthouse's longest-serving keeper was Parry W. Humphreys, who tended the light for over 16 years from 1869 to 1886. His wife Maria served as first assistant, followed by Jane W. Humphreys for nearly a decade. The keeper position was often a family affair.
Frank Stephenson served as head keeper from 1897 to 1917. He had a daughter named Lydia Ann — which brings us to the most persistent mystery of the lighthouse.
Who Was Lydia Ann?
The historical marker at the lighthouse credits "the daughter of the first keeper" for the name. But that's inaccurate. Keeper Frank Stephenson, whose daughter was named Lydia Ann, was the ninth keeper — not the first.
Local historians believe the channel was more likely named after Lydia Ann Dana Hastings Hull Wells, wife of Texas Revolution veteran James B. Wells. The name may have been applied to the channel first, with the lighthouse taking its name from the waterway it served. The truth is: no one has definitively settled the question. The lighthouse has been guiding ships for 169 years, and nobody can agree on whose name it carries.
“The lighthouse has been guiding ships for 169 years, and nobody can agree on whose name it carries.”
The Lens
The Fourth Order Fresnel lens that served in the lighthouse from 1878 to 1952 was manufactured in the 1860s by the French firm of Augustin Henry Lapaute. Lapaute's ancestors were clockmakers for Louis XVI and Louis XVII. After meeting Augustin-Jean Fresnel — the physicist who invented the revolutionary lens design before his death in 1827 — Lapaute applied his knowledge of clockwork mechanisms to create a new lens rotation system.
The lens stands two feet, four inches tall. It was decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1954 and eventually given to the City of Port Aransas, which turned it over to the Port Aransas Museum after its 2008 opening. In November 2022, Jean-Pierre Jacks — Lapaute's great-great-great-grandson — visited the museum from France and identified a previously overlooked maker's engraving on the lens's metal base. A 160-year-old connection, rediscovered in a small-town museum on a Texas barrier island.
Deactivation and Rescue
In 1952, a new light was established at the Port Aransas Coast Guard Station, and the Lydia Ann was deactivated after nearly a century of service. The tower was sold to private hands in 1955 for $25,151.
In 1973, Charles Butt — president and CEO of H-E-B, the Texas grocery chain — purchased the lighthouse property. Butt oversaw a careful restoration and hired a live-in caretaker, Rick Reichenbach, who was later profiled by Texas Monthly. On July 3, 1988, the light was reactivated as a private aid to navigation. An automated light was installed.
The Lydia Ann had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 3, 1977. Today it remains privately owned. The grounds and tower are closed to the public, but the lighthouse is visible from the water — charter boats and kayak tours offer viewing from the Lydia Ann Channel.