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Location | Mississippi Sound south of Pass Christian |
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Coordinates | 30°14′33″N 89°14′56″W / 30.2425°N 89.2489°W [1] |
Tower | |
Constructed | 1860 (first house) 1883 (second house) [2] |
Foundation | Screw-pile [1] |
Construction | square wooden house [1] |
Automated | 1932 |
Light | |
Deactivated | 1945 |
Focal height | 42 ft (13 m) [1] |
The Merrill Shell Bank Light was a screw-pile lighthouse which once stood on its eponymous shoal in the Mississippi Sound, west of Cat Island and south of Pass Christian, Mississippi. It was replaced by a skeleton tower on the same foundation.
The shoal was first marked by the hull of the former revenue cutter McLane serving as a lightship beginning in 1847, but this was replaced by a screw-pile light in 1860. The light was extinguished by the Confederates but was undamaged, and was re-lit in 1863. The house was damaged by fire in 1880, and was utterly destroyed in 1883 by another fire; it was rebuilt the same year. [3] In 1932 it was automated, and in 1945 the house was removed and replaced by a skeleton tower on the same foundation. [4] This tower was damaged by the hurricanes of 2005 and was discontinued in 2007. [5]