Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is the tallest in the nation and famous symbol of North Carolina.
It was built with 1,250,000 bricks baked in kilns along the James River in Virginia and brought in scows into Cape Creek where it was hauled by oxen one mile to the building site in Buxton. Its walls at the base are 14 feet of solid masonry and narrow to eight feet at the top. Weighing 6,250 tons, the lighthouse was built with no pilings under it - just a foundation built of heart pine. Towering 196 feet from the base to the top brick and then topped with an iron superstructure it become the tallest brick lighthouse on the American coast at 208 feet and at a cost of $155,000.00. In the summer of 1999, as the ever-encroaching waters of the Atlantic Ocean threaten this stalwart structure, the Cape Hatteras Light was moved from its original location!