{"id":2921,"slug":"biloxi-lighthouse-biloxi-mississippi","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Biloxi Lighthouse is the women's light — the 1848 cast-iron tower that Maria Younghans kept for 53 years, the longest tenure in U.S. Lighthouse Service history. Three women ran it for 74 of its 91 civilian years. It's on the Mississippi license plate.","The lighthouse was the survivor — the second cast-iron tower in America, built in Baltimore and bolted together on the beach, pushed two feet off vertical by the 1860 hurricane and righted by digging out the sand. Katrina's surge swallowed a third of it; the flag draped on the railing became the coast's symbol.","The tower is still there — the city's signature, the landmark that survived Camille and Katrina when everything around it didn't. The file keeps the light: the 1848 cast iron, the women keepers, and the lighthouse that's Mississippi's image.","The Biloxi Lighthouse is the archive's Gulf file — the women keepers' light, the hurricanes it survived, and the tower on the license plate."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Biloxi Lighthouse is the archive's Gulf file — the 1848 cast-iron tower, the 53-year woman keeper, and the Katrina survivor.","A lighthouse that outlasted the storms keeps its keeper — the file's suggestion being that Biloxi's hold is Maria Younghans: the 53-year tenure, the flag on the railing after Katrina, and the light that's the coast's symbol."]}],"name":"Biloxi Lighthouse","aliases":[],"type":"LIGHTHOUSE","type_label":"Lighthouse","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HISTORIC_BUILDING","LIGHTHOUSE"],"groups":["legends","maritime"],"desc":"The 1848 cast-iron tower that survived Katrina—still standing in the median.","full_desc":"A lighthouse in Biloxi, Mississippi, Biloxi Lighthouse is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The 1848 cast-iron tower that survived Katrina—still standing in the median. HauntHunt files it with lighthouses and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site welcomes visitors.","address":null,"city":"Biloxi","county":null,"state":"Mississippi","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.426663,"lon":-88.935762,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"MS batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2688,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence at the light. Maritime lore is the oldest ghost file there is; Biloxi Lighthouse in Biloxi, Mississippi is a fully credentialed entry. The reports are anecdotal — consistent enough to record, thin enough to stay unproven. The account appears in 'Biloxi Lighthouse'. Whatever walks there, it walks often enough to keep the reports coming.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Biloxi Lighthouse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biloxi_Light","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Built 1848; the hurricane survivals are documented. A vessel with a documented working life gives the file real substance underneath the maritime lore. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'Biloxi Lighthouse' documents the entry. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1848","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Biloxi Lighthouse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biloxi_Light","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Lighthouse site; tower climbs, if offered, are usually seasonal and may require tickets.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Biloxi Lighthouse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biloxi_Light","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Biloxi Lighthouse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biloxi_Lighthouse","desc":"Lighthouse in Mississippi, United States","extract":"Biloxi Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Biloxi, Mississippi, adjacent to the Mississippi Sound of the Gulf of Mexico. The lighthouse has been maintained by female keepers for more years than any other lighthouse in the United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and declared a Mississippi Landmark in 1987.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/BiloxiLightHouseandVisitorsCenter.jpg/960px-BiloxiLightHouseandVisitorsCenter.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":89},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}