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Mount Desert Rock Lighthouse Fun Facts
Location: South of Mount Desert Island
Closest City: Frenchboro, Maine
Latitude: 44 Longitude: -68.1
Body of Water: Gulf of Maine
Open to Public: No
Station Established: 1830
Present Tower Activated: 1847
Status of Light: Operational
Tower Height: 58 ft.
Optic: VRB-25, Solar Powered, 1993
Third Order Fresnel, 1858
National Register Reference #: 88000155
Listing Name: Mount Desert Light Station
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The first lighthouse on Mount Desert Island was erected in 1830 and consisted of a wood, octagonal tower housed inside a second roof above the stone keeper's quarters. Powered by a highly ineffective lamp and reflector system, the beacon proved to be of little or no assistance during the nasty gales common to the Maine coast. In 1847, a new tower was completed. The 48 foot, conical, granite tower was designed by famed Boston architect-engineer Alexander Parris, who also designed the highly durable Saddleback Ledge lighthouse near Vinalhaven. At the insistent behest of local mariners, the Lighthouse Board set aside $10,000 in 1855 to upgrade the site. The tower was raised ten feet in 1857 to accommodate a powerful new third-order Fresnel lens which could be seen up to 20 miles away. The interior of the tower had four stories of rooms with the lantern on top, shining from a height of 75 feet above sea-level.
 The original fog bell was deemed insufficient and replaced in 1877 with a larger 1,000 pound bell housed in a new 45 foot tower. The tumbling waves of the area were too strident for even this signal and, as such, it was then replaced in 1893 with a even louder horn. The keeper's quarters, having reached a state of severe disrepair, were replaced in 1892 with a 1.5 story, wood-frame, clapboard, colonial duplex which remains at the site to this day. In 1898, the fixed white light was changed to a flashing, 24,000 candlepower beacon. The site also hosts a storage building, a cistern, and a boathouse with launch (1895).
Similar to the Saddleback Ledge, Boon Island, and Petit Manan lights, the Mount Desert Rock lighthouse is very isolated at 15 miles from Frenchboro on Long Island and 20 miles from Mount Desert Island. With such a great distance to cover, inhabitants often stayed months, if not years, on the Rock. As is common among the ledges dotting the Maine coast, very little if any vegetation grows here. Keepers often relied on grateful mariners to bring baskets of earth which they deposited into the crags and crevices between the rocks in attempts at growing vegetables.
The site was staffed by keepers for just short of 150 years until it was automated in 1977 by the Coast Guard. The optic was upgraded to a Vega VRB-25 solar-powered aerobeacon in 1993. The 600 yard long by 200 yard wide island is owned by the College of the Atlantic and managed by that College's Island Research Center. The keepers quarters are now host to the Edward McC. Blair Marine Research Station, an ecological research facility. The site is close to the public. Photo opportunities can be had only by boat or air.
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