St. Augustine Light House, Florida

Founded in 1565, St. Augustine is both the oldest continuously occupied city in North America and the oldest port in the continental US. After some time of disputes among indigenous, French, and British forces, the Spanish built the nearby fort as the Castillo de San Marcos, only to be renamed St. Marks by the British until taken over by the Americans, who renamed it Fort Marion, after the Swamp Fox of Revolutionary War fame. Today the popular landmark is run as a National Park and named the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. (More on the fort in another post.)
As a port, St. Augustine needed a lighthouse to show mariners the way home through Florida's changeable coast and channels. Completed in 1874 on an island, the final lighthouse took three years and 1.2 million bricks to build on ground consisting of naturally cemented little shells called coquina, the same material used earlier to build the fort. The light house rises 165 feet above sea level and one must climb 219 steps to reach the viewing platform below the rotating lens.
Florida is flat. From the platform, the view is stupendous. Looking west (click photo to enlarge), one finds the Bridge of Lions under reconstruction before the city of St Augustine. To the right of the city and bridge, the defending fort may be seen. Behind in the distance are, well, flat Florida.
Looking north up one of the channels between the city and the barrier islands one finds the Atlantic Ocean to the right, and, perhaps Georgia way up there, north of Jacksonville.
After catching one's breath while looking over Florida, one contemplates going down those many steps, around and around and around, glad that we didn't have to carry the lamp oil up all those stairs every night over all those years before the lamp was electrified.