Tongue Point Light
Near Bridgeport Stamford, Connecticut
At the western tip of Bridgeport Harbor stands a squat cast-iron lighthouse built in eighteen ninety-five, planted on a concrete caisson right in the water. The lighthouse service chose this spot, called Tongue Point for the narrow spit it once sat beside, because the harbor entrance had claimed enough vessels. The light replaced an earlier stake light and served mariners entering one of Long Island Sound's busiest industrial ports.
Bridgeport at that time shipped everything from sewing machines to guns, and the light guided freighters through the shoals day and night. The Coast Guard automated it in nineteen fifty-four, and it remains an active aid to navigation. The compact tower still stands on its concrete base, a relic of the era when Bridgeport was a serious manufacturing port and every lighthouse mattered.
