LISTON REAR RANGE LIGHTHOUSE-DELAWARE

                                                                                                                 Liston Rear Range Lighthouse in 1933
                                                                                                              Photograph Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

Liston Rear Range Lighthouse is Delaware’s tallest lighthouse and also the one farthest from the water, standing three miles inland from the riverside location of its companion front range light. Vessels bound upstream pick up the piercing lights of Liston Range, the longest navigable range in the United States, near Ship John Shoal Lighthouse, which is located roughly seventeen miles from the front light. After following Liston Range from Delaware Bay to the mouth of Delaware River, vessels will alternately encounter red and green range lights as they continue upriver. Due to the length of the channel it covers, Liston Range must exhibit white lights, unlike the colored lights of the other range lights on the river. Liston Rear Range Lighthouse is the only range light on Delaware River to retain its powerful Fresnel lens; all others have been removed in favor of modern optics that are easier to service and maintain.
Liston Rear Range Lighthouse had elsewhere its beginnings. Built by Kellogg Bridge Company of Buffalo, New York, the wrought iron tower originally served as Port Penn Rear Range Lighthouse. The 120-foot tower was first lit on April 2, 1877 and helped guide ships from Ship John Shoal to Dan Baker Buoy until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers realigned the shipping channel served by Port Penn Range. On October 25, 1904, temporary lights were established on Liston Range to serve the newly created channel, and Port Penn Range was discontinued. Since the expense of relocating the tower from Port Penn Rear Range Station to Liston Rear Range Station was estimated to be one-third the cost of a new tower, the Lighthouse Board contracted John L. Grim of Philadelphia to make the move.The skeleton iron tower at the abandoned Port Penn rear light-station was moved to the present site and re-erected by contract on a new foundation. On May 15, 1906, the light was removed from the temporary lantern post and placed in the lantern of the re-erected tower. A second order range lens with lamps was ordered. The station was electrified sometime in the 1930s, allowing the station to be fully automated and the dwellings to be sold. Only the small parcel of land around the base of the tower was retained by the government. On May 3, 2004, the Delaware River & Bay Lighthouse Foundation signed a thirty-year lease on Liston Rear Range Lighthouse with the Coast Guard and assumed responsibility for the maintenance and preservation of the historic tower.