ASIPONA Coatzacoalcos celebrates World Lighthouse Day

August 07, 2025.

Lighthouses provide safety and guidance to ships and sailors navigating to the different ports of the world. For this reason, every August 7, World Lighthouse Day is celebrated. This commemoration originated in 1989 in the United States of America, with the purpose of remembering and valuing the importance of these emblematic structures for maritime navigation.

In the Port of Coatzacoalcos, we have the 'Lucio Gallardo y Pavón' lighthouse, located in what was formerly known as the Congregación de Allende. It was built between 1943 and 1945. Its light was turned on for the first time on June 1, 1943, and it alerted with two white flashes every 19 seconds and 9 seconds of eclipse, with a range of 19 miles and visibility in 360 degrees. This equipment had the latest technology of the time, such as a VHF radio, which was on alert 24 hours a day on the international channel.

The tower can be located at the geographical coordinates 18º, 08’, 56’’ north latitude and 105º, 94’, 58’’ west longitude. It was built of masonry (23 meters of actual construction) and covered with strips of white tile, which are no longer present today.

Over the years, the old lighthouse was replaced in the 1980s by another with greater technology, located a few meters away in the same area. However, the lighthouse keepers’ houses on the side, together with the surrounding land (1.7 hectares), became the Coatzacoalcos Bicentennial Park, an educational and recreational space for the population of the entire southern region of Veracruz, the country, and the world.