© 2004 R. Holmes

Location: Entrance to Providence River
1868 - presentLat 41 43 01 N - Long 71 20 42 W

Established: 1868

Original Lighthouse Constructed: 1868

Current Lighthouse Constructed: 1883

Automated: 1966

Original Illuminating Apparatus: Fourth Order Fresnel Lens

Current Illuminating Apparatus: 250-mm lens

Height: 58 feet

Status: Active aid to Navigation

Light Characteristic: Fixed White - Red sector from 322° to 349° (1906)
Flashing White every 2.5 seconds - Red sector from 322° to 349° (2005)

Range: 15 miles (1906)
White 8 miles - Red 5 miles (2005)

In 1866, a granite daybeacon was built on the shoal off Conimicut Point at the entrance to the Providence River. During its construction, the Lighthouse Board received a petition, signed by a number of ship owners and captains, asking that a light be added to the tower and the nearby Nayatt Point Lighthouse be discontinued.

A fourth order Fresnel lens placed on the tower was first lighted on November 1, 1868. Nayatt Point Lighthouse was discontinued that day. The new lighthouse did not have a keeper's quarters. The keepers had lived at the former Naytt Point light and rowed nearly a mile to the Conimicut Point Lighthouse.

A five-room stone keeper's dwelling was built on the lighthouse's landing pier in 1874. It did not last long. The following March, a field of floating ice moving down the Providence River hit the pier. The keeper's dwelling started to break up. The keeper, Horace Arnold, and his son had to jump onto a passing ice floe to avoid drowning. They were on the ice floe for several hours, until they were rescued by a passing tug. The keeper's dwelling was destroyed. They lost all of their furniture. Horace and son moved back to the Nayatt Point keeper's dwelling. Several years later Arnold's son was killed, when he fell from the lighthouse.

The granite tower was replaced with an iron tower in 1883. In 1960, Conimicut Point was the last lighthouse in America converted to electricity. It was automated in 1966.

In 2004 the city of Warwick, Rhode Island acquired Conimicut Light under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000(NHLPA). The NHLPA allows the transfer of historic light stations to federal agency tribes, state and local governments, nonprofit corporations, educational agencies and community development groups.

Conimicut Light was transferred to Warwick on September 29, 2004 in a ceremony held at the Elizabeth Buffum Chance Center. Two of the lights's former keepers, Fred Mikkelsen and Robert Onosko, were at the ceremony.

The city of Warwick in now responsible for the care and maintenance of lighthouse structure. The U.S. Coast Guard will only maintain the lighthouse's beacon and fog signal.

In October 2004, I saw grass growing on the lighthouse. I hope this isn't a sign of how the lighthouse will be cared for in the future.