In 1990, the USPS issued its first series of commemorative stamps featuring America's coastal lighthouses. These familiar symbols of safety and direction to mariners everywhere, are portrayed in a booklet of five commemorative stamps designed by artist Howard Koslow.
The lighthouse featured here is the American Shoals Light in the Florida Keys. It is located east of the Saddlebunch Keys, just offshore from Sugarloaf Key, and close to Looe Key. Completed in 1880, its structure was built of a "skeleton iron" construction to withstand hurricanes. The light was automated in 1963 and still used today, being maintained by the US Coast Guard.