Walk Georgia’s entire original lighthouse complex on one small stretch of Tybee Island

Every building’s still standing

The Tybee Island Light Station sits where the Savannah River empties into the Atlantic, right at the north end of the island.

Georgia’s oldest and tallest lighthouse anchors the site, but the tower is only part of the story. Every original support building still stands on this one small piece of ground.

Three keeper’s cottages, a summer kitchen from 1812, an oil house, and a museum across the street all come with your ticket. You walk the whole thing at your own pace, with volunteers around to fill in the gaps.

Four towers in 300 years, and only one survived

General James Oglethorpe ordered the first tower built here in 1736. It stood about 90 feet tall, wood and brick, and a storm took it down five years later.

A second tower went up unlit and eventually fell to the advancing sea. The 1773 replacement held.

It got its first candles in 1791 and kept burning until 1861, when Confederate troops torched the top on their retreat to Fort Pulaski. After the war, crews rebuilt the upper section in fireproof masonry and metal.

That rebuilt tower is the one you climb today.

178 steps to the top of Georgia’s tallest light

The black-and-white tower rises about 145 feet and still wears its 1916 daymark paint pattern. You earn the view one step at a time, all 178 of them.

Every 25 steps or so, a rest area with a viewing window gives you an excuse to catch your breath and look out over the island below. Near the top sits a nine-foot first-order Fresnel lens installed in 1867.

The light still works, flashing as a coastal navigation aid the same way it has for over a century.

Step onto the catwalk and see three states of water

At the top, you push through a door and step onto the catwalk that wraps around the lantern room. The whole island opens up beneath you.

North Beach stretches below, and the wide mouth of the Savannah River fans out toward the Atlantic. You can spot cargo ships tracing the shipping channel on their way to port.

The wind picks up out here, and if it picks up too much, the catwalk closes. On a calm day, there is no better view on the Georgia coast.

Three cottages for three families who kept the light

Three keeper’s cottages cluster near the base of the tower.

The Head Keeper’s House dates to 1881 and still holds period furniture that shows what family life looked like inside. Four years later, the First Assistant Keeper’s House went up in the Stick Style to an identical plan.

The Second Assistant Keeper’s cottage started differently. Union forces built it as barracks in 1861 after occupying the island.

Walking through the open exhibits, you see the daily routines and the strict ranks of the men who kept the light burning.

One summer kitchen fed all three families

A small brick building near the cottages dates to 1812, making it the second-oldest structure on the property.

Georgia summers push heat and humidity to the point where cooking inside a house is miserable, so all three keeper families moved their meals out here. They shared this one kitchen for close to a hundred years.

Individual kitchens finally went in behind the houses around 1910. Today the building displays artifacts pulled from archaeological digs across the site.

They built a fireproof house just for the fuel

When the light burned kerosene, someone had to store the fuel, and no one wanted it near the tower or the cottages. In 1890, the station built a separate oil house with a concrete floor, brick walls, and a tin roof.

Every piece of it was meant to contain a fire if one started. The small building shows how carefully a working light station managed everyday risk.

It is one more original piece of a complex where nothing has been lost.

A Spanish-American War battery holds 400 years of history

Just across the street from the lighthouse stands Battery Garland, built in 1898 and 1899 as coastal defense during the Spanish-American War.

It was part of Fort Screven, which ran seven gun batteries in all, six of them right here on Tybee Island. The battery now holds the Tybee Island Museum, and your lighthouse ticket gets you in.

Exhibits inside cover more than 400 years of island history, from early colonization through the military era and beyond.

Keeping the light meant keeping everything else too

The keepers did far more than flip a switch. They maintained the light, cleaned and repaired the massive Fresnel lens, and kept every building and every inch of the grounds in order year-round.

Many of them watched the weather and scanned the water for ships in trouble. The work demanded a strict routine and a self-sufficient life in an isolated spot.

Exhibits in the cottages and summer kitchen lay those daily duties out so you can see exactly what the job required.

North Beach is calm, uncrowded, and full of dolphins

North Beach starts right at the foot of the lighthouse.

It sits at the mouth of the Savannah River, where the current meets the Atlantic, and the water here runs calmer than the busy South Beach crowd a few miles down.

Huge cargo ships bound for the Port of Savannah glide through the shipping channel close enough to watch from the sand. Dolphins show up just offshore on a regular basis.

You can stand at the waterline and see them working the current.

Purple sandpipers and diving gannets crowd the jetty

North Beach draws some of the best birdwatching in Georgia. In winter, purple sandpipers turn up here more reliably than anywhere else in the state.

Northern gannets circle the river’s mouth and dive headfirst into the water after fish. Year-round, you can spot terns, gulls, pelicans, and cormorants working the surf line.

Black skimmers, the ones with the bright orange-and-black beaks, gather on the north end. The stretch between the jetty and Polk Street is the prime zone.

Shark teeth wash up next to sea turtle nests

Beachcombers walk the dunes at North Beach hunting for fossilized shark teeth that the tide pushes onto the sand.

Endangered loggerhead sea turtles nest on Tybee’s beaches from about May through October, so you may see roped-off nesting areas along the shore.

The quiet rocks and tide pools near the jetty reward a slow morning of poking around.

History, wildlife, and open shore all sit on the same strip of sand, and this end of the island makes it easy to lose track of time.

Climb Georgia’s oldest lighthouse at Tybee Island Light Station

You can find the Tybee Island Light Station at 30 Meddin Drive on the north end of Tybee Island.

The station is open daily except Tuesdays, with last tickets sold at 4:30 p.m. Your admission covers the tower, the publicly accessible cottage exhibits, the summer kitchen, and Battery Garland across the street.

Two hours of parking come included. Wear flat, comfortable shoes for the 178-step climb, and leave the backpacks behind, because bags of any size are not allowed on the grounds.

The tower and catwalk are not wheelchair or stroller accessible, though parts of the museum and cottages are.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Georgia’s most photographed road leads to ruins older than America itself
• Tybee Island fits five beaches, a lighthouse, and sea turtles into 3 square miles
• Georgia’s most haunted lighthouse has survived a murder, a war, and 150 years of storms