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Lighthouses: A Reference Guide
Lighthouses are a dying breed. Ships feared dark coastlines and relied on lighthouses to keep them safe from dangerous rocks. Today with GPS and other technologies, fewer ships need them so new lighthouse construction is extremely rare.
From candle-powered and manned lighthouses thousands of years ago to the modern, stand-alone LED lighthouses of today, it has been an interesting evolution for the coastline protectors of the world. What follows is a chronicle of important lighthouses in history.
The United States’ Newest Ghost Town? Empire, Nevada
A company town is a town where all property and services are owned by the employer. For an employer who plies its trade in mining, such towns are inventions of necessity to provide a labor force given the remote locations of the mineral discoveries.
U.S. Gypsum (USG), one of the leading producers of sheet rock, had just such a need when a major deposit of gypsum was discovered 100 miles north of Reno in the middle of the Nevada desert. Employing several hundred workers, USG’s town of Empire reached a peak population of 750 in the early 1960s.
But by 2011, U.S. Gypsum – hit hard by the economy and a reduced demand for sheet rock – was forced to close its doors and the town. Read more…
