Скачать или смотреть Special Report: Volunteers make it their mission to restore, preserve the Bolivar Point Lighthouse

Bolivar Peninsula — It's stood as a beacon on Bolivar Peninsula for more than 150 years, and it's still used as a guide to land to this day.

But who takes care of the Bolivar Point Lighthouse?

"It's the first thing you see when you come across the ferry, and when you are coming down 87," Amy Maxwell Chase said.

Standing tall since 1872 and now re-painted to its former iconic black and white stripes, the Bolivar Point Lighthouse is a piece of Texas history.

"So, the government auctioned off the lighthouse in 1947," Chase said. It was auctioned off to pay back government war bonds."

The lighthouse is also a large piece of Amy Maxwell Chase's childhood. She grew up there, as it was privately owned by her family.

"We've been maintaining the property all this time, until 2015, when the nonprofit was started, the Bolivar Point Lighthouse Foundation 501c3 non-profit, that was started to restore the lighthouse and share it with the world," Chase said.

As executive director of the foundation, Chase quit her full-time job during the pandemic to focus more on what she calls a "passion project."

"It just keeps bringing people together for this common goal that we get this lighthouse restored back to the way she was 152 years ago," Chase said.

Chase took us up the lighthouse's 135 stairs and four landings. It's hard to believe the lighthouse has weathered numerous hurricanes and a war.

"Right here is where the lighthouse was accidently shelled by Fort San Jacinto in 1917," Chase said as she showed us where the lighthouse was patched.

The lighthouse is proof age is just a number. In immaculate condition, clean, sturdy, freshly re-painted with a new set of doors. Now, the only thing missing is its crown.

"One of the biggest projects we had was in 2023 where we removed the top of the lighthouse," Jody DeSantis, treasurer of the board of directors for the Bolivar Point Lighthouse Foundation said. It was crumbling, it was in really bad condition. So, in order to save that and be able to share it later on, we needed to take the top off."

History comes with a hefty price tag. The new top being one of the foundation's biggest obstacles to date.

"That's about a $1.4 million from start to finish to get that put on, plus adding a beautiful lens to it, so we can light it up for the coast again," DeSantis said.

It's called a passion project for a reason. The foundation is made up of volunteers with "for the love of the lighthouse" as their motto.

"When I started back five years ago helping out with this, we were a small organization trying to really build up awareness," DeSantis said.

They continue sharing its legacy.

"There's so much history to be told," Chase said.

And they're hoping to one day reopen the lighthouse for all to enjoy.
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