Photograph of Ponce de Leon Inlet Light — Photograph by ErgoSum88, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Ponce De Leon Inlet Lightstation

A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1835. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. 9 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1937.

From the record

“The Ponce de Leon Inlet Light is a lighthouse and museum located at Ponce de León Inlet in Central Florida. At 175 feet (53 m) in height, it is the tallest lighthouse in the state and one of the tallest in the United States.”
Wikipedia article Ponce de Leon Inlet Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 93 National Register listings published here for Volusia County · listed in 1972 · category: Building · built in 1835, by Orville E. Babcock · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 8 buildingss, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. 4931 S. Peninsula Dr., U.S. Coast Guard Reservation, Ponce de Leon Inlet, 32127
When was it listed? September 1972
Category. building
Census division. South Peninsula
When was it built? 1835
Architect. Orville E. Babcock
National Register reference number. 72000355 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1937 to 1954

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 17 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Ponce De Leon Inlet Lightstation, surveyed 1954

Topographic sheet covering Ponce De Leon Inlet Lightstation, surveyed 1937

Fires near this property

87 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 87 fires within 5 miles of Ponce De Leon Inlet Lightstation between 1992 and 2020, burning about 667 acres in total. 33 started naturally. 5 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	33
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	17
Equipment and vehicle use	15
Railroad operations and maintenance	8
Arson/incendiarism	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	5
Recreation and ceremony	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Debris and open burning	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
3 August 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	WF-64-SPRUCE CREEK PRESERVE
3 August 1992	Natural	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	not named
22 August 2011	Natural	1.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	WILLIAMS RD EAST (64)
21 August 1993	Natural	2.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
20 August 1993	Natural	3.5 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
19 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	BERRY PICKER (64)
17 August 2013	Natural	3.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	ART CENTER (64)
9 July 2012	Natural	16 acres	Florida Forest Service	MARTIN DAIRY RD (64)

Every fire recorded in Volusia County

Maps showing this location

9 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1937 USGS Port Orange quadrangle1:48000
1943 USGS Port Orange quadrangle1:62500
1944 USGS Port Orange quadrangle1:62500
1954 USGS Daytona Beach quadrangle1:250000
1956 USGS New Smyrna Beach quadrangle1:24000 - 6 printings
1956 USGS Port Orange quadrangle1:62500
1958 USGS Daytona Beach quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1964 USGS Daytona Beach quadrangle1:250000
1978 USGS New Smyrna Beach quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Pacetti Hotel	0.2 miles	2020
Meyer-Davis House-Hasty Cottage	0.4 miles	2015
Green Mound	2.8 miles	2020
El Real Retiro	3.2 miles	1987
Coronado Historic District	3.3 miles	1997
Old Fort Park Archeological Site	3.7 miles	2008

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 72000355 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Volusia County	All 93 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.