Shinnecock Light was and is an important lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

 on the south side of Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. The name comes from the Shinnecock Indian Nation

Shinnecock Indian Nation

The Shinnecock Indian Nation is a federally recognized tribe, headquartered in Suffolk County, New York, on the south shore of Long Island. Shinnecock are an Algonquian people from Long Island...

.

The original red brick tower was built in 1858. It was 168 feet (51m) tall and had a 1st order 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...

, itself almost 12 feet (3.5m) tall. If it were still standing it would be one of the ten tallest lighthouses in the US. It was discontinued in 1931 in favor of a skeleton tower and demolished by the Coast Guard in 1948. Some time later the Coast Guard built a communication tower on the site and moved the light to the height of 75 feet (23 m) on that tower.