The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area
The 120-acre Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area site, once set aside for the Coast Guard and the Jupiter Inlet lighthouse, lies primarily in the Town of Tequesta. It was returned to its original owner, the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management in 1996, largely through the efforts of Jamie Stuve, president and CEO of the Loxahatchee Historical Society. It is managed locally by the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resource Management.
“I have the highest regard for the work that Jamie Stuve did in order to get the federal Outstanding Natural Area designation for this treasure,” says Martin County Commissioner Patrick Hayes. “Neither the county nor the state could purchase the land at the time, and she performed miracles to get that under the wing of the Department of the Interior. It literally took an act of Congress.”
The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area, one of only three such areas in the U.S., (the other two in California) also is part of the National Landscape Conservation System, the only one east of the Mississippi River.
Members of the JILONA working group include representatives from the Palm Beach County Department of Resources Management, the towns of Jupiter and Tequesta, the U.S. Coast Guard, the US Bureau of Land Management, as well as Palm Beach County businesses and schools, and they work in partnership with the Department of the Interior to oversee the management of the property and to ensure it meets ONA objectives of environmental protection, land preservation, education and recreation.
