Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Newspaper Articles

Reprinted by permission of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina

June 25, 1999

The News & Observer

Lighthouse movers find work inspiring, fun

By JERRY ALLEGOOD; STAFF WRITER

Page: A3

BUXTON -- Tourists aren't the only ones drawn by the movement of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

To hear workers tell it, the chance to help relocate the nation's tallest, heaviest lighthouse is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, not just a job.

"This is the big one; this is the jewel in the crown," Mike Landen said as he watched the work in progress. The lighthouse was expected to have traveled 850 feet by Thursday.

Landen, who lives in Farmville when he's not traveling, is a foreman with Expert House Movers, a Virginia Beach company that has worked with International Chimney Corp. of New York to move three lighthouses and large buildings. But those projects didn't attract the crowds or national publicity that have accompanied this one, he said.

Standing about 200 feet tall and weighing 4,800 tons, Cape Hatteras is the largest brick lighthouse moved in the United States, company officials say.

Brian Emans of Belews Creek, a boilermaker who usually works in power plants and paper mills, signed on Saturday with Expert House Movers and has worked positioning beams. Since the project began in December, about 100 people have been hired for tasks ranging from removing granite with jackhammers to welding steel.

"I just wanted to do it, " Emans said of the lighthouse work. "I'm tickled to be here, and I'm going to be here when it gets to the end."

One perk of the job is the chance to bring home mementos. Emans and other workers placed coins under the steel rollers as the lighthouse inched along and retrieved thin, elongated strips as souvenirs.

Seven track beams stick out from under the lighthouse. On top of them are 100 units called Hillman rollers that look like industrial-strength roller blades. Five push jacks in back of the lighthouse provide thrust by extending 5-foot arms. After each push, the jacks are moved and the process repeated.

In front, a worker wipes down the 2-foot-wide track beams with a lubricant that seems out of place on an industrial site - Ivory Soap. Jerry Matyiko of Expert House Movers said the soap, selected through trial and error, helps keep the rollers from sliding around.

The track beams rest on a mat of steel that in turn sits atop a bed of gravel and rock a foot deep. The steel mat is picked up and moved to the front as the lighthouse passes. At a rate of 70 to 100 feet a day, the journey to the new home is scheduled to take about a month.

The relocation uncovered a bed of timbers that were put in the ground to support the structure in the late 1860s. Bob Woody, a spokesman for Cape Hatteras National Seashore, said some of the timbers will be made into museum displays and some preserved for future study. Most will be reburied where they lie.

At the lighthouse's future home, workers have already poured a 60-by-60-foot concrete pad 5 feet thick that will serve as an underground foundation.

Section: News
Edition: Final
Estimated Printed Pages: 2

Index Terms:
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
NC
coast

Caption:
photo

Brian Emans of Belews Creek holds a quarter that was smashed into a huge oval when the Hatteras Lighthouse rolled over it. 'I'll probably put $100 underneath this thing before it's over,' Emans said.

The Associated Press

Copyright 1999 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.

Record Number: 1999175022