Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse Tour

Big Diamond, open a few days a year

⏱ 1.5 hours👤 All ages$$

The lighthouse belongs to the era when the Florida coast was still lightly settled, and the inlet carries local lore: the barefoot mailmen who walked the beach route between Palm Beach and Miami in the 1880s and 1890s crossed here, and a bronze statue by sculptor Frank Varga, placed at the tower's base in 2012, remembers James Ed Hamilton, the carrier said to have drowned attempting the crossing in 1887. A long-repeated tale claims the tower was first shown at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair; historians now treat that as a newspaper myth. The real drama came later: the Coast Guard automated the light in 1974, the great lens went dark in 1992 when its rotating mechanism failed, and a local campaign led by the Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society, founded in 1997, restored it and relit it for good in 2000. The society took over maintenance in 2008, its volunteers run the tours, and the station has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.

Planning matters because dates are scarce. The society publishes its schedule well in advance, typically one tour day a month with several boat departures through the day, plus occasional themed tours tied to neighbouring towns. Check-in opens half an hour before the first sailing; return boats leave about thirty minutes after each departure, so most visits last around an hour on the grounds. The calendar mixes regular monthly tours with themed appreciation days for the neighbouring towns, a 120th birthday tour in March 2027 and a Barefoot Mailman Remembrance Day in the autumn; summer tour days sail in the morning only. On tour days the society's small museum and gift shop also open, free of charge. Leave beach chairs, coolers, towels and snorkel or fishing gear at home.

Who should go: lighthouse enthusiasts, families with children old enough to manage a steep climb under close supervision, and photographers. If your dates miss a tour day, the lighthouse is still worth seeing from the Pompano Beach pier or the inlet's south jetty, and a sunset from the pier frames the beam as it starts to turn.