Bodie Island Light
Encyclopedia : B : BO : BOD : Bodie Island Light
The current Bodie Island lighthouse is the third that has stood in this vicinity of North Carolina. The first two actually stood south of Oregon Inlet on Pea Island. The first was built in 1847 and then abandoned in 1859 due to a poor foundation. The second, built in 1859, was destroyed in 1861 by retreating Confederate troops who feared it would be used as a Union observation post during the Civil War. The third and current lighthouse, with its first order Fresnel lens, was completed in 1872.
Though some people (including North Carolinians not from the Outer Banks) insist on pronouncing the name with a long "o" sound, the locals prefer to call it "Body." This is derived from the original name of the area which was "Bodies Island", due to the numbers of dead sailors washed ashore from this portion of the Atlantic Ocean, which is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Local gift shops sell maps of the shipwrecks on the ocean floor and it is an impressive array of ships that have been sunk due to storms, shoals, or even German u-boats in World War II.
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