Barcelona Light: The Natural Gas Lighthouse

The Barcelona Lighthouse on Lake Erie, completed in eighteen twenty-nine, holds an unusual distinction: it was the first lighthouse in the United States to use natural gas as its fuel. A spring of natural gas seeped from the ground near the shore, and the lighthouse keeper simply piped it up to the lamp, producing a steady flame for harbor guidance. The technology was ahead of its time, but the gas supply was unreliable, and reports from the eighteen thirties and eighteen fifties describe oil and lamps being kept on hand as a backup.

The tower itself, built of local fieldstone, still stands in the village of Barcelona near Westfield, New York. It is one of the oldest surviving lighthouses on Lake Erie and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.