The historic St. Johns River Lighthouse began shining its light just before the Civil War broke out, and apart from a break during that conflict — when Confederates hid its light in hopes of flummoxing Union sailors — it steered ships to safety until 1929.

Owned now by the U.S. Navy, it’s been shut down for almost a century and now stands as almost an afterthought behind a fence on the western edge of Naval Station Mayport, unused, empty and largely unvisited. Its doorway was long ago buried by fill brought in to level Navy runways, and the only way inside involves a ladder and climbing through a window.

That doesn’t mean it’s unloved.

Read the rest of this story at the Florida Times-Union, a Jacksonville Today news partner.