Qualla: Lüdao Lighthouse

Lüdao Lighthouse: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Yuriy kosygin, CC BY-SA 4.0. On December 11, 1937, the Dollar Steamship Company luxury liner SS President Hoover was en route from Japan to the Philippines when it struck a reef at Zhongliao Bay on the coast of what was then called Kashotoken — Green Island, Taiwan. All 503 passengers and 330 crew survived. The island's residents pulled them ashore, sheltered them, and kept them safe until other ships arrived to carry them home. As a gesture of gratitude, the American Red Cross funded a lighthouse to mark the island's position and warn future mariners. Designed by a Japanese engineer and built by the islanders themselves, it went into service in 1939. The Lüdao Lighthouse — Green Island Lighthouse — stands today on Cape Bitoujiao as a white 33-meter tower with 150 steps to its top, and with a history that encodes a remarkable sequence: a wreck, a rescue, an act of gratitude, a war, a rebuilding.

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Image: Yuriy kosygin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lüdao Lighthouse: The Wreck That Built a Lighthouse

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Twentyfirstidentity, CC BY-SA 4.0. The SS President Hoover was one of the prestige liners of the Dollar Steamship Line, a name that has since faded from memory but was prominent in Pacific Ocean passenger travel during the 1930s. When the ship struck Green Island's reef in December 1937, the situation could easily...

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Image: Twentyfirstidentity | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lüdao Lighthouse: War and Rebuilding

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 大頭家族 from Taipei, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0. The lighthouse survived the late 1930s but not the 1940s. American air strikes during World War II destroyed it — a grim irony, given that American generosity had paid for its construction. After the war, with the Republic of China government now administering Taiwan, the lightho...

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Image: 大頭家族 from Taipei, Taiwan | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lüdao Lighthouse: Cape Bitoujiao: Watching the Pacific

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 大頭家族 from Taipei, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cape Bitoujiao — the headland where the lighthouse stands — juts from the northwestern portion of Green Island into open Pacific water. The position is strategically logical: a light here is visible to ships approaching from multiple directions, and the cape's prominence means it...

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Image: 大頭家族 from Taipei, Taiwan | CC BY-SA 2.0