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The eighty (80) foot light tower is located approximately 25 miles southeast of Southport, NC and marks the shoals at the confluence of the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, the Frying Pan Light Tower has emitted an automated beacon since 1979, when its crew was removed. The platform rests on four, eighty-foot steel legs. The tower extends forty feet above water and forty feet below to the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The tower is equipped with a fog horn, radio beacon, and computer in addition to the automated light. The platform consists of two floors. The subfloor is a living area of approximately 5,000 square ft. that includes five bedrooms, kitchen, office, storage area, recreation area and toilet facilities. This adapted Gulf Coast oil drilling platform, known as a "Texas Tower," was built in Louisiana and brought by barge to Frying Pan Shoals in 1966. Prior to the light tower, lightships had marked the shoals for 112 successive years with only a four-year break during the Civil War. The first Frying Pan Lightship was anchored in 1854 in the shoals. Its two, forty-foot high lights helped guide sailors into the Cape Fear River and to the port of Wilmington. Only fear by officials that a hurricane would blow the lightship from its anchorage brought the end of the long tenure of Frying Pan Lightships.
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