Built: 1876

Type: Brick Tower

Height: 161 feet

Status: Non-Active

Location: Morris Island

Deactivated: 1962

Lens: First Order Fresnel / 1938 Automated

Keepers:

Notes: Many of the southern lights were quickly rebuilt or repaired and returned to service following the war. However, it wasn't until March 3, 1873 that funds were appropriated for a new tower on Morris Island. To provide a proper foundation for what would be a first order seacoast light, over two hundred wooden piles were driven fifty feet into the sand. Above the pilings, an eight-foot-thick concrete foundation was poured. The base of the foundation had a diameter of thirty-three feet and tapered to sixteen feet eight inches at its top. This sizable foundation was necessary to support the brick tower, which would rise over 150 feet into the air and weigh close to 4,000 tons. A three-story dwelling was built for the keepers, and the light from the tower's first-order Fresnel lens was activated on October 1, 1876. The tower was built using the same plans as Bodie Island Lighthouse and was painted with the same horizontal black and white markings.  In 1884 the illuminating apparatus was changed for the use of mineral oil instead of lard oil.
The cyclone of August 25, 1885, destroyed the rear beacon of the Morris Island range, overturned part of the brick wall which enclosed the tower and dwelling of the main light, carried away the bridge between the beacons, and destroyed a large part of the plank walks connecting the several lights and dwellings, and overturned the boathouse. The range was reestablished 3 days later by a temporary beacon. A new wooden skeleton structure 40 feet high was built in 1885.
The earthquake of August 1886 threw the lens of the main light out of position and cracked the tower extensively in two places, but not so as to endanger its stability. The lens was replaced and the cracks repaired without delay.  Erosion of land caused the Coast Guard to begin construction of a new lighthouse in 1960. The new light was commissioned on June 15, 1962. The tower stands 163 feet high on the north side of Charleston Harbor entrance on Sullivan's Island.
A year after the completion of the third Morris Island Lighthouse, Charleston petitioned Congress for funds to construct jetties at the entrance to its harbor. The channel at that point was only twelve feet deep, and it was hoped that the jetties would constrict the harbor's outflow and scour out a channel with a greater depth. Over the next thirteen years, the jetties slowly grew to a length of just under three miles. The jetties succeeded in deepening the main channel, but they also altered the sand transport patterns at the entrance to the harbor. Even before the completion of the jetties, it was evident that both Sullivan's Island and Morris Island were losing large amounts of sand. To counter the erosion of the islands, plans were drawn up for spurs to be extended from both the northern and southern jetty. Two spurs were added to the northern jetty, providing protection for Sullivan's Island, but those planned for the southern jetty were never completed. Morris Island thus continued to slowly dissolve. In 1880, the lighthouse stood 2,700 feet from the water. By 1938, the lighthouse was at the water's edge, and today the lighthouse is its own island, roughly 1,600 feet offshore.