Before the Lighthouse: George G. Meade’s Design for Jupiter Inlet
Long before its red tower became an unmistakable part of Jupiter’s landscape, the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse existed as lines on a sheet of paper.
A surviving historic drawing, dated to around 1850 by Florida Memory, shows an early design for a lighthouse at Jupiter Inlet. Written prominently across the top is “DESIGN FOR A LIGHT HOUSE at JUPITER INLET FLORIDA.”
Even more interesting is the name beneath it: Lt. Geo. G. Meade, Top. Eng.
Before Meade Was a Civil War General
Today, George Gordon Meade is best remembered as the Union general who commanded the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
But years before the Civil War made his name famous, Meade was an Army engineer whose work took him to the coast of Florida.
Lighthouses were critical pieces of infrastructure in 19th-century Florida. With dangerous reefs, shoals, shifting inlets, and long stretches of relatively undeveloped coastline, mariners depended on them for navigation.
Jupiter Inlet was among the locations identified for a lighthouse, and Meade became part of the effort to turn that idea into a functioning navigational aid.
A Lighthouse on Paper
The historic drawing provides a remarkable view of the project before the tower rose above Jupiter Inlet.
On the right is a tall cross-section of the proposed lighthouse, revealing the interior staircase winding upward toward the lantern. The drawing shows the proportions of the tower, its foundation, openings, upper gallery, and lantern structure.
Along the left side are a series of circular plans illustrating different levels of the tower.
Rather than simply showing what the lighthouse would look like from the outside, the document provides a glimpse into how engineers thought about the structure from the inside out.
For a modern Jupiter resident, there is something striking about seeing such a familiar landmark reduced to its earliest geometry: circles, measurements, stairways, walls, and carefully drawn lines.
From Drawing Board to Jupiter Landmark
The path from planning to completion was not immediate.
Construction of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse began during the 1850s, and the lighthouse was first illuminated in 1860. Its location near the meeting point of the Loxahatchee River, Indian River, and Atlantic Ocean gave the light an important role in navigation along Florida's southeast coast.
The landscape surrounding it would change dramatically over the following century and a half.
Railroads arrived. Jupiter grew. Bridges crossed waterways that once presented formidable barriers. Roads, neighborhoods, and businesses spread across northern Palm Beach County.
Through all of it, the lighthouse remained.
Today, the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse is one of the community's most recognizable historic landmarks—a structure closely associated with Jupiter even by people who know little of its 19th-century origins.
That makes this drawing particularly special.
It captures a moment when the lighthouse wasn't yet a landmark.
It was an idea.
And on a sheet of paper roughly 170 years ago, an Army engineer named George G. Meade was helping determine what that idea would become.
Historic image: “George G. Meade's design for the lighthouse — Jupiter Inlet, Florida,” circa 1850. Florida Memory, State Library and Archives of Florida.