Lighthouse Keeper

Last week I went to Tybee Island, Georgia to research for a new cozy mystery series. We toured Tybee Island Lighthouse.

There’s a lot to share about the lighthouse, but today I want to focus on an item I discovered in the light keeper’s house.

I asked the guide about this box. He told me the federal government sent inspectors to the different light stations periodically. Many light keepers were alone at first and grew bored and turned to drinking too much. The government decided to encourage men with families to apply for the jobs.

Another way to avoid boredom was to deliver boxes of books. You can see this box is numbered. The inspector would deliver boxes of books from station to station. When the books had been read by all of the light keepers, they’d replace the books.

Have you ever visited a lighthouse? If you were a light keeper, what kind of books would you want to find in you box?