Fowey Rocks Light is located seven miles southeast of Cape Florida on Key Biscayne

Key Biscayne

Key Biscayne is an island located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. It is the southernmost of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast of Florida, and lies south of Miami Beach and southeast of Miami...

. The lighthouse was completed in 1878, replacing the Cape Florida lighthouse. It was automated on May 7, 1974 and is still in operation today. The structure is cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

, with a screw-pile

Screw-pile lighthouse

A screw-pile lighthouse is a lighthouse which stands on piles that are screwed into sandy or muddy sea or river bottoms. The first screw-pile lighthouse was built by blind Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell...

 foundation, a platform and a skeletal tower. The light is 110 feet above the water. The tower framework is painted brown, while the dwelling and enclosed circular stair to the lantern is painted white. The original lens was a first-order drum Fresnel lens

Fresnel lens

A Fresnel lens is a type of lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses.The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design...

 which stood about 12 feet (4 m) high and weighed about a ton (tonne). The light has a nominal range of 15 miles in the white sectors, and 10 miles in the red sectors.

Fowey Rocks are named for the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 frigate HMS Fowey

HMS Fowey (1744)

HMS Fowey was a fifth rate warship of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 August 1744 in Hull, England. She spent only four years in commission before she struck a reef and sank in what is known today as Legare Anchorage in Biscayne National Park, off the coast of Florida...

 which was wrecked on a different reef to the south in 1748. During construction of the lighthouse the workers lived on a platform built over the water to minimize the danger of transporting them and their supplies each day from the mainland. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935

Labor Day Hurricane of 1935

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was the strongest tropical cyclone of the 1935 Atlantic hurricane season, and one of the most intense hurricanes to make landfall in the United States in recorded history...

 washed away the first deck of the lighthouse, 15 feet above the water, but the tower survived. The lighthouse is inside the boundaries of Biscayne National Park

Biscayne National Park

Biscayne National Park is a U.S. National Park located in southern Florida, due east of Homestead. The park preserves Biscayne Bay, one of the top scuba diving areas in the United States. Ninety-five percent of the park is water. In addition, the shore of the bay is the location of an extensive...

.

In June 2011, the General Services Administration

General Services Administration

The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...

made the Fowey Rocks Light (along with 11 others) available at no cost to public organizations willing to preserve them.