Tour Miami to ‘See the Light’ in South Florida!

During your Miami Beach Air Tour, you will enjoy a birds-eye view of the many beautiful and historical sites that have helped to shape the history of this beautiful city. One important landmark not to be missed is the Cape Florida Lighthouse, which can be observed on the Miami Skyline, Key Biscayne Air Tour and Romantic Sunset Air Tour.

The famous Cape Florida Lighthouse can, and should, be experienced from up-close when you tour Miami via coach or on-foot following your Miami Beach Air Tour. This famous lighthouse is located on Cape Florida, at the south end of Key Biscayne in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Constructed in 1825, the Cape Florida Lighthouse guided mariners off the Florida Reef, which starts near Key Biscayne and extends southward a few miles offshore of the Florida Keys. It was operated by staff, with interruptions, until 1878, when it was replaced by the Fowey Rocks Lighthouse. The Cape Florida Lighthouse was put back into use in 1978 by the U.S. Coast Guard to mark the Florida Channel, the deepest natural channel into Biscayne Bay. It was subsequently decommissioned in 1990.

Within the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park since 1966, the Cape Florida Lighthouse was restored via a joint project with the Dade County Historical Society in 1995-96. A museum was installed in a replica of the keeper's quarters, to give visitors a sense of the maritime history of Florida. As part of the renovation, the light was replaced with its present optics before its reactivation. The lighthouse was relit in time for the Miami Centennial celebration in July 1996. It is now owned and managed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

In 2004, a sign was installed in the park to commemorate the site for the escape of hundreds of slaves and Black Seminoles to the Bahamas in the 19th century. The Cape Florida Lighthouse is part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Trail. The lighthouse was featured in several episodes of the television series Miami Vice in 1988, and Burn Notice in 2010. It was also featured briefly in the 1945 John Wayne film, They Were Expendable, and the 1985 Kurt Russell thriller, The Mean Season.