Lumen over the coast for 150 years

Yaquina Head Lighthouse celebrates a century and a half of service

Story and photos by Eliot Sekuler

For the TODAY

It rises dramatically into view as you drive along the coast: looming 93 feet above the shoreline. The Yaquina Head lighthouse by far the tallest structure north of the Newport harbor and shares honors with the Yaquina Bay Bridge as the most iconic and most photographed edifice on the Central Oregon Coast.

The beacon was first illuminated in 1873, and this 150th anniversary year will be marked by a series of sesquicentennial events and programs, some of which are already underway. Two of the people who are helping to plan and implement those events are Amy Anderson, executive director of the community-based Friends of the Yaquina Lighthouses, and Chris Papen, the US Bureau of Land Management’s acting site manager.

“We’re looking at a community-wide celebration that will continue throughout the year,” Papen said, “and we very much want to involve the community.”

The year’s events will include several that are continuations of existing activities, including an artist-in-residence program, initiated last year with Newport-based artist Emy Syrop, that might be expanded to attract applicants from around the country. And the Friends group will again fund a program that Anderson described as her favorite: a summer employment program for local high school students.

Partnerships with local businesses and organizations will also be part of the commemoration. The first such anniversary program to be introduced this year, Anderson said, will be a sponsorship with a local brewer.

“The Newport Brewing Company will be making available to the public a special brew named after the lighthouse on Friday, February 10,” she said. “Along with the beer, there will be special commemorative pint glasses honoring the Yaquina Head Lighthouse and 10 percent of the sales from that glassware will be donated to Friends of Yaquina Lighthouses.”

Other tie-ins are in the works, Anderson said, adding that planning is also underway for a three-day event, August 18 through 20, to mark the lighthouse’s operational anniversary date.

According to Anderson, the lighthouse is a significant resource for the City of Newport.

“The lighthouse has historical meaning to the formation of the town,” she said. “Half of this area was a working quarry and the rock was used to make the roads around here. And we get close to a half million people every year, so we’re a big part of Newport’s tourist economy. And just aesthetically, it’s a very romantic building. Most of the people who live in the Nye Beach area can see the lighthouse when they get up every morning and visitors see it as they drive along the coast.”

Despite the availability of sophisticated navigational equipment, the lighthouse is still very much a functioning navigational resource for shipping, fishing and recreational craft.

“For fishermen, lighthouses still play a primary function,” Papen said. “For some people it’s a landmark, but for others it’s a safety beacon. Not every boat has sophisticated GPS equipment and, even for those that do, electronics fail from time to time. The lighthouse is an important tool.”

The Yaquina Head tower is the tallest of Oregon’s eight remaining lighthouses and is also the second oldest. Maintaining the facility as both a visitor attraction and a functioning navigational resource has required extensive restoration efforts, all of which must comply with Oregon’s state historical preservation office guidelines. With assistance from private donations and funds raised by the Friends of Yaquina Lighthouses, the lighthouse building’s original work room was recently restored and is accessible to visitors. A second first-story room, known as the oil room, is currently under restoration, as is the spiral stairway that ascends the tower.

Although the lighthouse is the most conspicuous structure at the 100-acre Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area, the park is also home to a network of hiking trails and an interpretive center. From atop the bluffs, victors can see a spectacular assortment of wildlife. Varying with the seasons, are sightings of seals, orcas and passing gray whales. Birdlife is plentiful and includes eagles, peregrine falcons, cormorants, western gulls and, each spring, a massive assembly of some 65,000 common murres, among the west coast’s largest nesting colonies of that species.

Yaquina Head’s dramatic vistas have provided a backdrop for several TV and film productions dating back to the 1970s era “Nancy Drew Mysteries” and including the 1983 film, “Hysterical” and 2002’s “The Ring.” And, like many lighthouse settings, Yaquina Head has also figured into tales of ghosts and hauntings. One “tale” tells of a vein of magnetized iron embedded in the headlands rock formation, causing ships passing very close to the site to sometimes find their compasses fluctuating oddly. Stories of the supernatural were spun from that source, but Chris Papen affirmed that he’s seen no evidence of ghosts during his tenure at the site.

“But I’ve lived in Oregon all my life,” said the Otis resident. “When you get a day when the wind is gusting and howling, it is very ghostly, isn’t it?”

For more information and the schedule of events go to yaquinalights.org or call 541-574-3100.