The Oak Island Lighthouse is located in the Town of Caswell Beach near the mouth of the Cape Fear River in Southeastern North Carolina. It sits next to the Oak Island Coast Guard Station on the east end of Oak Island in Brunswick County looking south out at the Atlantic Ocean. Featuring 16 LED lights which produce four, one-second bursts of light every 10 seconds, it has a luminous range of 20.5 nautical miles. Owned by the town since 2004, it is managed by a citizens group (Friends of Oak Island Lighthouse). History In May 1958, the Oak Island Lighthouse replaced the Cape Fear Light, a steel skeleton structure on Bald Head Island which was demolished that same year. The Cape Fear Light began operation in 1903 and was then a functional replacement for the still standing and now popular tourist attraction, the 1817 Bald Head Light (Old Baldy). During the period 1958–1962, the Oak Island Light was the brightest in the US (the Charleston Light in South Carolina now holds that distinction). In February 2002, it became a news item when the adjoining USCG Station caught fire, and while the station burned to the ground, the lighthouse suffered no damage. Rebuilt over the existing foundation, the current Coast Guard station closely resembles the old one. The following year, the lighthouse was designated as surplus and in 2004 the Town of Caswell Beach gained ownership from the Federal Government of it, the surrounding grounds and adjacent oceanfront property. The transfer agreement requires the town to maintain the property for recreation purposes with the Coast Guard continuing to be responsible for operating the beacon. In April 2007, the Oak Island Lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places. A major exterior rehabilitation of the structure was completed in 2016 by the International Chimney Corporation (the same company that moved the Cape Hatteras Light). Until 2020 the Lighthouse used four 2.5 million candlepower aerobeacon lenses. The lighthouse experienced several power fluctuations causing the motor that rotates the lights to fail, which required the lights to be turned off. USCG ANT Oak Island (Aids to Navigation Team), the group responsible for maintaining the light, have been in the process of evaluating what it would take to upgrade the existing lights to a newer LED technology. With the failure of the motor, they determined that this would be the perfect opportunity and