August 7 is known to those who love lighthouses as “National Lighthouse Day” and has been since 1989 when the U.S. Lighthouse Society (in honor of the U.S. Lighthouse Service’s 200th anniversary) asked Congress to designate August 7 as a day to celebrate the country’s lighthouses.

Back in 1789, the ninth law that the very first Congress ever passed gave the federal government control of all lighthouses in the United States and established the U.S. Lighthouse Service to build, maintain, and manage the lighthouses and hire lighthouse keepers to take care of them. In 1939, the U.S. Lighthouse Service was folded into the Coast Guard, who is now responsible for the care and maintenance of all lighthouses, lightships, and other navigational lights.

From the cheery barber-pole stripes of the lighthouse at North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras and the diamonds of the lighthouse at Cape Lookout to the “light-in-a-box” looking out over Washington’s Cape Flattery, lighthouses have played an important part in our history—each with its own story to tell. North Carolina’s Oak Island Lighthouse has always been my favorite—but there are others that come in as close seconds: the Montara Lighthouse in northern California, the big red Marquette Harbor Light on Michigan’s Lake Superior, and the almost hidden Point Bonita Lighthouse.

Hope you have a happy lighthouse day!