Kennebec River Range Lights
Several lighthouses were built in 1898 to aid mariners traveling along the Kennebec River towards the shipbuilding center of Bath.
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These lights (originally known as Doubling Point Range Lights) were established on Arrowsic Island in 1908; the two wooden towers are the only range lights in Maine.
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Straight alignment of the lights indicates to vessels the middle of the river channel on approach to Fiddler Reach, a sharp double bend in the river just beyond Doubling Point.
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The front range light is 21 feet high, the rear light 13 feet tall; the towers are 235 feet apart and each originally held a fifth-order Fresnel lens (both were removed in 1979).
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A wooden walkway connects the keeper's house and the two towers.
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A boathouse was added in 1901 and an oil house in 1902.
A bell tower in disrepair still stands between the Kennebec and Doubling Point stations.
Beginning in 1938, efforts were made to consolidate and automate the series of Kennebec River lighthouses.
The keeper at Kennebec station was given the additional duty of keeping Doubling Point Light, just around the bend in the river.
Then in 1979, responsibility for the Kennebec and Doubling Point lights was assumed by the keeper at Squirrel Point Light. Finally, in 1981, the Coast Guard moved the keeper from Squirrel Point back to the Kennebec Station.
In 1982 the station was renamed Kennebec River Light Station and was the first to be tended by a woman resident keeper. The range lights were automated in 1990.
A Coast Guard family now lives in the keeper's house, and the grounds are open to visitors.
All lighthouse trips from Maine Maritime Museum pass the range lights as does Kennebec Adventure Tours.
You can find them here http://www.kennebecjetboat.com/
All text copyright ã 1999 by Courtney Thompson/CatNap Publications. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system or transmitted, in any form without prior written permission from the publisher.
All images copyright ã 2001 by Richard Asarisi/Photoworkings.com. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system or transmitted, in any form without prior written permission from the publisher.