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Great Lighthouses
Washington: Lighthouses of the Pacific Northwest
Cape
Disappointment Lighthouse, Washington, - 1856
Open to public; active aid to navigation; owned and managed by Coast Guard.
Cape Disappointment, at the entrance to the Columbia River, was built in Washington,
but was built to warn mariners traveling in Oregon waters, going to mouth of Columbia
River (it’s also listed in Oregon books as an Oregon lighthouse).
Oldest operating lighthouse in the Pacific Northwest. Area has lots of history.
Cape Disappointment received its name in 1778 from fur trader John Meares, who was
looking for a river. When he decided that no river existed, he called the area Cape
Disappointment.
The need for a lighthouse at Cape Disappointment was determined in 1848 by a US
Coast survey. Yet the lighthouse wasn’t completed until 1856, because the vessel
Oriole, carrying the construction materials, sank just miles from the site in 1850.
(see Bibliography: Gibbs, Lighthouses of the Pacific p. 135-6). The second
shipment arrived in 1854 and then it took two more years to build at a cost of $38,500.
This was more than 1/4 of the original amount of $148,000 allotted for the original
8 lighthouses for the West Coast.
In 1864 received unwelcome neighbors when Fort Canby was erected to guard the
Columbia River during the Civil War. Blasts from the big guns used to shake the lighthouse
and occasionally break windows. During World War II, Japanese submarines surfaced
off Fort Stevens on the South side of the river and lobbed in several shells at Fort
Canby. The Fort is a Washington State Park and popular picnic and camping grounds.
Early Keepers Stories:
Joel Munson, keeper in 1860, upset by the many shipwrecks, decided to raise money
for a life-saving boat by holding square dances in Astoria, where he played the fiddle
and charged $2.50 entrance fees.
In the late 1800’s, third assistant keeper George Esterbrook was cleaning the
tower light on a stormy night when he got locked out on the balcony and had to scale
the copper lightening rod to get back in. When he got back in on the second balcony,
he was exhausted, but soon went back to work. Weeks later he quit the service, and
went on to study medicine and become a physician.
Coast Guard maintains a lifeboat station and school at Cape Flattery. Only
one of its kind on the West coast; used to train recruits for motor lifeboat duty.
Exercises take place in demanding weather condition on stormy seas.
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Cape
Flattery, Tatoosh Island, Washington - 1857
Not open to the public. Owned and managed by Coast Guard. Active aid to navigation.
Tatoosh Island named in 1788 by Captain John Meares, who named it after Chief
Tatooche of the Makah Indians. Tatoosh means Thunderbird.
It is located at the northwest corner of the forty-eight contiguous United States
as well as entrance to Strait of Juan de Fuca.
It is one of the original 16 lighthouses designated by the U.S. Lighthouse Service
to be built on the West coast.
There was trouble between the Native American Indians and both the survey and
construction crews. The Makah Indians had long made the island their summer home
and used it to catch salmon, spear whales and plant potatoes --as well as for their
potlatches (ceremonies in which Indian hosts gave away lots of their possessions).
The first Americans built temporary fortresses to keep the Native American Indians
out. When the second survey crew came, they infected the Native American Indians
with small pox, and wiped out more than 500 of (about half) their tribe. The Native
American Indians were very resentful of the "Bostons" because of this.
The construction crew built fortresses had guards and prepared for attack. The Native
American Indians didn’t attack, but stole food, tools and clothes and eventually
became curious and just got in the way. Took 1 1/2 years to build because of the
slow arrival of materials and the hostilities.
This Light is noted for troubles with it’s keepers. The first four keepers left
within months as a result of their fear of the Native Americans, and with their difficulty
in obtaining mail and supplies. Two early keepers got into an argument over breakfast
and threw hot coffee at each other, scalding each other. They decided to have a duel
to the death, but after each emptied his pistol without wounding the other, they
called a truce and later became friends. Later they learned that their buddies had
loaded the pistols with blanks.
The isolation got to them -- before telephones, their only communication was via
the infrequent stops by the tenders. Indian paddlers used to deliver mail, personnel
and supplies. One tenacious Native American, "Old Doctor" crashed three
canoes against the rocks. Telephone cables often broke in storms.
In 1883, a weather station was put up -- this was a good place for it. It recorded
an average of 215 inches of rain per year.
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Destruction
Island Light, Destruction Island, Washington, - 1891
Not open to the public. Owned and managed by Coast Guard. Active aid to navigation.
"Isolated, forlorn, dreary, and barren" was the description given by
a Coast Guardsman. It sits on a 30-acre island about three miles from an uninhabited
section of the mainland. The nearest town, La Push, is twenty miles north. Reef and
rocky shores make it difficult to land a boat on the island. The island sits like
a flat grassy tabletop over the rocks. About 40 years ago, a repairman arrived to
make a repair. He expected to go home the same day, but strong winds kept him there
for two weeks.
Construction of the Light took three years because of the difficult conditions.
The lighthouse is outfitted with a first-order Fresnel lens, which still operates.
A FUNNY STORY: (see Bibliography: DeWire, Guardians of the Lights p. 66-68)
Because of the bad weather conditions in the Puget Sound, a steam powered fog signal
was installed two years after the lighthouse was first commissioned. When it wore
out, it was replaced by a diaphragm horn, that bellows in a deep voice like that
of an angry bull. At the time there were a number of cows living on the island, as
well as one contented bull among this harem. Grazing was good and there were no fences,
since the island dropped off over the rocks. When the new foghorn sounded for the
first time, the bull thought he had a competitor and charged the source of this noise
-- the lighthouse. He crashed the fence surrounding the fog signal and then charged
the fog signal house, in a several hour rampage. The keepers had to make a pen to
contain the bull and it was months before he came to terms with the sound of the
foghorn.
Grays
Harbor (Westport) Light, Westport, Washington - 1898
Owned by Coast Guard; active aid to navigation; open to public on certain open
house days
One of the most majestic lighthouses on the West Coast. Set back from the ocean,
its octagonal 107-foot tower rises over surrounding sand dunes and trees. Most of
its original lighting system is intact.
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