Lighthouse open Friday

Night openhouse Friday for lighthouse anniversary

From the earliest history, the wary mariner skirting the coast of California to the west of Drake's Bay has known and shunned a certain bold headland - shrouded for the most part in fog but in clear weather revealed to him in all the awfulness of its rocks and precipices and perpetually churning waters. - San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 25, 1887

By Joel Reese The Point Reyes Lighthouse will celebrate its 125th anniversary on Friday, Dec. 1, and to commemorate the anniversary, Park Service rangers will light its ancient beacon from 5:30 to 9 p.m.

It will be a rare opportunity for the public to see the original beacon lit after dark, for a nearby automated beacon has now replaced the original on a day-to-day basis.

Guest speakers and park rangers will be on hand Friday evening to answer questions and tell about the history of the lighthouse. A Spanish-speaking ranger will also be present from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

18-year delay The lighthouse began with a congressional grant of $25,000 in 1852 after several ships ran aground off Point Reyes. But the point's steep location, an extravagant asking price for the site, and murky land titles delayed the land's purchase until 1869.

During the delay, at least seven more ships wrecked on Point Reyes, with the losses totaling nearly $1 million. In 1860, an angered California senator wrote, "The commerce between California and Oregon is suffering constantly for want of a lighthouse."

A year later, with no signals to guide him, the skipper of the Sea Nymph thought he was entering the Golden Gate and, with all sails set, ploughed straight into Point Reyes Beach.

Construction of the lighthouse finally began in January 1870 when building materials were shipped to Drakes Bay, hauled uphill by oxcart, and then lowered to the lighthouse promontory.

The original plans called for a Cape Cod style-lighthouse at the top of the promontory, but the point's thick fog made this option infeasible. The lighthouse was, therefore, built 275 feet down the cliff - where it perched 294 feet above the Pacific.

Shipwrecks continue Although the beacon went into operation on Dec. 1, 1870, the shipwrecks off Point Reyes continued - although less frequently. Some captains complained that the beacon was invisible to southbound ships while others said it was impossible to hear the foghorn from the north.

Others said the point was simply too foggy - a claim backed by Dr. Horace Byers in his Synoptic and Aeronautic Meteorological Book. Byers lists Point Reyes as second only to Nantucket Island off Massachusetts for dense fogs.

Engineering marvel Even so, the Point Reyes Lighthouse was an engineering marvel of its day. The forged-iron-plate building housed a state-of-the-art lens that cast a beam of light 24 nautical miles. After a series of improvements, ships by the 1930s were able to see the beam from 39.5 miles away.

Park Service literature notes the lighthouse's Fresnel lens, designed by French physicist Augustin Fresnel, "revolutionized the lighting of lighthouses" across the world.

The largest of Fresnel's seven lenses, the Point Reyes beacon consists of 24 local lenses with 1,032 sections of handcut crystal. It weighs three tons.

The light for the lens - which stands nearly eight feet tall and six feet across - originally came from four wicks, which burned 17 pints of refined lard oil every 10 hours.

Drunk lighthouse keepers It was maintained by lightkeepers who were hardly entranced by the romance of their jobs: "taxing labor, loneliness, monotony, and the worst weather conditions," in the words of the Park Service.

Lightkeeper EG Chamberlin on Sept. 21, 1885, wrote in his journal: "Fog, fog, and nothing but fog. No mail since the ninth instant. Getting short on provisions. O solitude, where are the charms that sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms than reign in this horrible place."

An article in a 1887 San Francisco Chronicle said one keeper "even regaled himself, when out of whiskey, with the alcohol furnished for cleaning lamps, and a familiar sight to the ranchmen [on Point Reyes] was this genial gentleman lying dead drunk by the roadside, while his horse, attached to the lighthouse wagon, grazed at will over the country."

The monotony, foul weather, and stern hand of Lightkeeper John C. Ryan, produced this entry in the log for Jan. 30, 1889: "The second assistant went crazy and was handed over to the constable in Olema."

Mishaps The lighthouse was also plagued by other problems: in 1872, a fog whistle burned to the ground. Three years later, the coal car down to the lighthouse broke loose and ploughed into the sleeping room.

Another time the fog siren stayed on for 176 consecutive hours, prompting a Chronicle writer to observe, "The jaded attendants looked as if they had been on a protracted spree."

Originally operated by the Government Lighthouse Service, the beacon was taken over by the Coast Guard in 1915. The Park Service acquired the surrounding site in 1966.

The Coast Guard, however, temporarily continued to man the lighthouse, which was closed to the public after a boy was killed by its rotating lens.

After more than a century of use, the Coast Guard's last lighthouse keeper, Thomas Smith, turned the venerable beacon over the Park Service in 1975.

Editorial campaign In 1976, The Light began a successful editorial campaign to force the Western Regional Office of the Park Service to budget enough money to reopen the lighthouse to the public. The reopening occurred the following year.

Within a year, it became the most popular place on the coast for watching the winter migration of California gray whales.

The lighthouse, which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of the last remaining operating 19th-century lighthouses on the West Coast. The Park Service maintains the original beacon in operating condition in case its automated replacement breaks down.

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