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"Drum Point Lighthouse" by Paul McGehee. The picturesque screw-pile lighthouse on a sunny summer's day in 1918. The lighthouse once warned mariners away from the shoals of Drum Point, Maryland where the Patuxent River meets the Chesapeake Bay. Constructed in 1883, Drum Point Lighthouse was manned and operational from the 1880's up until 1960, when it was automated and ran as such until 1962 when it was finally decommissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard. Originally positioned away from the mainland in waters 10' deep, the silting and shoaling shoreline at Drum Point soon found the waters receding and more and more sand approaching the little light with each passing year. By the turn of the century a wooden footbridge was constructed so that the the lighthouse keeper and his family could better access the building, their home, without the use of a boat. After Drum Point Lighthouse was decommissioned it lay vacant and in disrepair for several years, until the Calvert County Historical Society acquired the light in 1974. As the land underneath her was still owned by the government, the Society had the lighthouse's supports cut from the ground, and the structure then transported by barge a little over 2 miles to the grounds of the nearby Calvert Marine Museum where she has been fully restored and is now on display for the public to enjoy. As many of her kind were scrapped following decommissioning, the Drum Point Lighthouse is one of four original Chesapeake Bay screw-pile type lighthouses that still exist.
"Drum Point Lighthouse" is faithfully reproduced as an archival-quality print from McGehee's original color pencil and acrylic artwork, each hand-signed by the artist. Print image size: 11" x 18 5/8"
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