Nubble Lighthouse

Discover the lost lighthouse hiding behind the one everyone knows.

Nubble Lighthouse has graced calendars, postcards, and Instagram feeds for generations, but almost no one knows it very nearly looked completely different. In 2026, the author uncovered the original 1853 plans for a Nubble lighthouse that was designed, costed, and approved by Congress, and then abandoned without explanation. Drawn up by young Army engineer William B. Franklin, these nine pages sat unread and unknown for more than 170 years. Nubble Lighthouse reveals them in full for the first time, transcribed and explained alongside the story of the man who wrote them, a figure whose later career turned out to be genuinely historic.

This is far more than the story of one lost document. It's a complete, richly illustrated history of Cape Neddick Light, beginning one hundred million years before any lighthouse existed, with the geology that formed the rock itself, and continuing through shipwrecks, decades of failed petitions to Congress, and the very different tower that finally rose on the Nubble in 1879. Along the way, readers meet the thirteen keeper families who tended the light for one hundred eight years, raising children and weathering storms on a rock the size of a city block, and learn how a modest fourth-order harbor light became one of the most photographed lighthouses in America.

Chapters cover the Nubble's older, wilder sibling at Boon Island; how the lighthouse earned National Register status and international fame; its life today as one of Maine's most-visited attractions; and a stunning season-by-season photographic tour, from sunrise to snowfall to fireworks over the Nubble. A closing chapter draws every thread together into a reflection on what this small, stubborn rock has meant to the town of York, and to one family in particular.

Written by Michael E. McGrath, whose own family has been tied to the Nubble for thirty years blends personal devotion with serious archival research, aided by AI-assisted research into the National Archives. Whether you're a lighthouse enthusiast, a Maine coast regular, or simply someone who has stopped at Sohier Park to take a photo, this is the definitive account of a landmark that has more history, and more secrets, than its postcard image ever let on.