This Day in Coast Guard History – Feb. 23

1822- Congress authorized the Revenue Cutter Service to protect the natural environment by preventing "scoundrels" from cutting live oak, needed for cutters and Navy vessels, on Florida public lands.

1837-Congress called for an inspection of the coast from Chesapeake Bay to the Sabine River "with regard to the location of additional light-houses, beacons, and buoys."  Captain Napoleon L. Coste, commanding the Revenue cutter Campbell, was dispatched.  He reported that the first addition to aids to navigation on this entire coast should be at Egmont Key, Tampa Bay.  A lighthouse was authorized immediately and built the next year. 

1877-First Lieutenant Dorr F. Tozier, USRCS assisted in saving the French bark Peabody, which had gone aground on 23 February 1877 off Horn Island in the Mississippi Sound.  Tozier was awarded a Gold Medal by the President of the French Republic "for gallant, courageous, and efficient services" in saving the French vessel.

2003- The Honolulu-based Coast Guard cutter Walnut was ordered to the Middle East in preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

(Source: USCG Historian’s Office)