Conimicut Light

At the entrance of the Providence River sits a small lighthouse that does not seem to be very well known outside of the Providence / Warwick, Rhode Island area. The lighthouse is the Conimicut Light. The Conimicut Light warns mariners of the shoal that bears the same name. The current light is 58 feet tall and flashes a white light every 2 1/2 seconds. It is made of cast iron and has a fog horn that sounds twice every thirty seconds.

Conimicut Light is the second lighthouse and third marker to sit at Conimicut Shoal. The previous two markers, including the first lighthouse, were both destroyed by drifting ice. Originally built in 1866 and first lit in 1868, the lighthouse did not have a keeper's residence until 1874. Keepers would stay in the old Nayatt Point Light which had been discontinued the same year Conimicut was first lit. Nayatt Point stood on the eastern side of Providence River's entrance into Narragansett Bay and required the keepers to row more than a mile to the western side in order to tend the Conimicut Light. Conimicut was automated in 1963 and is still an active aid to navigation maintained by the United States Coast Guard.