The Oregon Companion: An Historical Gazetteer of the Useful, the Curious, and the Arcane by Richard H. Engeman

Author:Richard H. Engeman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: State & Local, History, NV, WA), West, Travel, Local, Oregon - History, Pacific, General, United States, HI, Oregon, Pacific Northwest (OR, Biography & Autobiography, Oregon - Geography, Oregon - Description and Travel, Pacific Northwest, CA, Pacific (AK, OR
ISBN: 9780881928990
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2009-03-18T10:00:00+00:00

The crag known as Tillamook Rock held one of the most forbidding lighthouses on the Pacific Coast. The photograph, probably taken in the 1930s, shows a supply vessel approaching the rock. Personnel and supplies had to be lifted from ship to rock by a derrick, which is visible at the right. Mason collection.

The offshore protuberance of Tillamook Rock was crowned with a lighthouse, built in 1879–81, that was horrendously difficult to build and a continuing nightmare to operate. One life was lost in the construction; maintenance required putting on and taking off crews and supplies by breeches buoy from a ship hovering near the rock. Storms tossed small boulders through the roof and windows; a 1934 storm put out the light and destroyed the Fresnel lens. In 1957, the light at “Terrible Tilly” was extinguished for good. The lighthouse was empty until 1980, when a columbarium was established there, with remains flown out by helicopter; it has not been a lucrative enterprise.

Construction began on the Cape Meares lighthouse in 1886, and it commenced operations in 1890. An automatic beacon replaced it in 1963; the decommissioned lighthouse stood vacant until 1980. Since then it has been part of the state park and is available for viewing.

The tower of the Yaquina Head lighthouse north of Newport was built between 1871 and 1873 with some 370,000 bricks shipped up from San Francisco. It is the tallest Oregon lighthouse at ninety-three feet. The light was automated in 1966; it uses the original lens, and is in operation. Since 1993, it has been open to the public. Restoration work on the tower was completed in 2006. Contrary to some accounts, it was not intended that the lighthouse should have been built at Cape Foulweather, located several miles north.

The small wooden lighthouse at Yaquina Bay, in downtown Newport, was built in 1871 and operated only until 1874, when the Yaquina Head lighthouse effectively supplanted it. The building charted a perilous course for many years and it was nearly demolished several times, until the Lincoln County Historical Society saved it and in 1956 began to use it as a museum. In 1974, it was transferred to the Oregon state parks system. Finally, in 1996, the light was relit as a private aid to navigation.

The lighthouse at Heceta Head was built in 1892–94 and automated in 1963. It still has its original Fresnel lens; the lighthouse operation was stopped in 2000–01 for repairs to the lens and the rotating mechanism.

Funds were appropriated for the first lighthouse at the mouth of the Umpqua River (and the first in Oregon) in 1851, but mishaps delayed completion until 1857. The lighthouse was built on sand, and in 1864 it collapsed; a replacement was built at Cape Arago to the south. A second Umpqua River lighthouse was built in 1891–94. It was automated in the 1960s and repaired in the mid-1980s; the Fresnel light still shines, and the tower is available to the public through the Douglas County Museum.

The light at the Cape Arago lighthouse was first lit in 1866, atop an iron tower on an island reached by a rowboat.

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