United States Lighthouse Board

The United States Lighthouse Board was the second agency of the U.S. federal government, under the Department of Treasury, responsible for the construction and maintenance of all lighthouses and navigation aids in the United States, between 1852 and 1910. The new agency was created following complaints of the shipping industry of the previous administration of lighthouses under the Treasury's Lighthouse Establishment, which had had jurisdiction since 1791, and since 1820, been under the control of Stephen Pleasonton.

The quasi-military board first met on April 28, 1851, and with its establishment, the administration of lighthouses and other aids to navigation would take their largest leap toward modernization since the inception of federal government control.^[1] In 1910, the Lighthouse Board was disestablished in favor of a more civilian Lighthouse Service, under the Department of Commerce and Labor; later the Lighthouse Service was merged into the United States Coast Guard in 1939.