Welcome Home, Lighthouse

The long journey for the 129-year-old Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is finally over.

The nation's tallest lighthouse has traveled nearly 2,900 feet over the past three weeks to save it from the rough Atlantic surf. It's got a new home and was moved onto its concrete pad Friday.

The 4,800-ton, 208-foot lighthouse was moved because it was losing its fight with beach erosion, and was only 150 feet from the rough Atlantic surf. The National Park Service says its new home, some 1,600 feet from the surf, will make a safe home for another hundred years.

But the process isn't over yet. Once on the pad, the steel rails will be replaced by supports and 140,000 bricks will surround the lighthouse. That's expected to take about six weeks. The move cost $10 million.

Since the move began June 17, the spectacle of moving a landmark that has faced the ocean for so long has become a huge attraction in Buxton, turning the quiet North Carolina seaside village into a bustling business strip with traffic jams. Hordes of tourists visited the site each day to get one last glimpse of the vanishing vista of the lighthouse versus the Atlantic.

The move was expected to take four to six weeks, but it has been much faster because the contractors came up with a quick way of attaching and unattaching the jacks without bolting and unbolting them.

The lighthouse once guided ships in the treacherous waters off Cape Hatteras, known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. But with the advent of electronic and satellite navigation, the beacon is seldom used.

The Park Service plans to re-light the lighthouse's twin beacons on Labor Day and reopen it to the public next Memorial Day.