Hereford Inlet Lighthouse, Wildwood-by-the-Sea, NJ, circa 1961

About this postcard

The Hereford Inlet Lighthouse stands as a white clapboard square tower rising from the center of a two-story keeper's dwelling. Its lantern room is ringed by a black gallery railing and topped with a small ventilator ball. The house has a red shingled roof, two brick chimneys, and a broad covered porch with turned posts and a white railing, reached by a wooden stair. The whole structure sits on a dark pier-like base above sandy, grass-tufted ground. The printed caption identifies the station at Wildwood-by-the-Sea, N.J., and notes it was built in 1874, with 1,100,000 candlepower, 53 feet above high water, and visible 13 miles at sea. The cottage-like keeper's quarters with the lantern rising from the roof are a distinctive Victorian form among American lighthouses, and the card presents the station as a shore landmark for the resort community.