The 175-foot Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse in Ponce Inlet served as inspiration for Stephen Crane’s famous short story, “The Open Boat”? First published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1897, “The Open Boat” was based on Crane’s ordeal of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year. Crane and three other survivors used the lighthouse to navigate their small boat to shore: “A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats.” According to none other than H. G. Wells, “The Open Boat” was “beyond all question, the crown of all [Crane’s] work.” Originally known as Mosquito Inlet Light Station, the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse in Florida and the third tallest lighthouse in the United States.