Take a shine to Yaquina Head

By Michael Edwards

For the TODAY

When the clock struck midnight on April 17, 1851, Joseph Wilson and Portuguese immigrant Joseph Antoine stood atop the pitching and grinding Minot’s Ledge Lighthouse in Massachusetts. In the chaos of the rivet-popping nor'easter, one of the embattled lighthouse keepers scribbled onto a scrap of paper a distress message, placed it into a glass bottle, which he plugged with a cork and cast into the black void of Cohasset Harbor. Even as wind and waves reduced the five-ton spider works of iron, glass and wood into a floating garbage patch in the roiling Atlantic Ocean, the defiant keepers kept the beacon’s oil burning and the bell ringing.

The day after the disaster, a Gloucester fisherman found the doomed keepers’ prophetic note.

“The lighthouse won’t stand the night. She shakes 2 feet each way now.”

The Minot’s Ledge disaster taught fiscally conscious politicians what engineers had known all along, that no expense could be spared when constructing American lighthouses. Already confronted with the challenges of building lighthouses able to withstand Gulf Coast hurricanes, New England nor'easters and the ship-breaking icy gales of Upper Michigan’s Gitche Gumee, now, with the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1849 and the subsequent increase in shipping traffic, lighthouse engineers applied their algebra to the problems of geographic isolation and the relentless storms of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Yaquina Bay is one of the few harbors breaking up the 900-mile weather-beaten coastline between San Francisco Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Yaquina Bay Lighthouse was built in 1871, yet even as the paint dried on that modest clapboard building, Yaquina Bay Lighthouse’s location and its fifth-order Fresnel beacon were deemed insufficient for the job. Four miles north of the bay lighthouse on a windswept peninsula, engineers and technicians went to work on an immense lighthouse that was to provide a signpost for north- and southbound shipping and also light the way into Yaquina Bay.    

Building a durable lighthouse at Yaquina Head and supplying that lighthouse with materials and supplies was a logistical nightmare. Every one of the 370,000 bricks that went into the superstructure of the 93-foot-high Yaquina Head Lighthouse was shipped in from a foundry in San Francisco, 600 miles to the south. Most of the food consumed at Yaquina Head was also imported. Two of the ships supplying the Yaquina Head construction site capsized in storms. When seas were too rough at Yaquina Head and the Yaquina Bay bar granted safe passage, cargo was unloaded in Newport and shipped via mule-drawn wagons six miles over a muddy, often impassable road. Fortunately, the ship carrying the lighthouse’s delicate Fresnel (pronounced “Fren-nel”) beacon, arrived in one piece.  

Dubbed “the invention that saved a million ships” the first-order Fresnel beacon that adorns the Yaquina Head Lighthouse is one of 467 built. Prior to the completion of the lighthouse, in order to avoid hitting a giant sea rock or a headland, ships traveling along Oregon’s Central Coast often anchored before sundown and waited until morning to continue their voyage. The 12,787-pound Fresnel beacon at Yaquina Head, its light visible 20 miles out to sea, allowed mariners sailing along the treacherous waters off Cape Foulweather to carry on with their commerce through the night. 

A physicist at explainthatstuff.com summarizes the Fresnel beacon’s exceptional performance as follows:

“The thick rings in the Fresnel’s lens surface bend the light. Each step bends the light slightly more than the step beneath it, so the light rays all emerge in a perfect, parallel beam that travels miles across the ocean.” 

Like many magnificent man-made contraptions, the Fresnel beacon requires constant inspection and maintenance. The following excerpt from the Light-House Board’s “Instructions to Light-Keepers July 1881” manual highlights the sensitivity of the Fresnel’s glass lens:

“Before beginning to clean the lens it must be brushed with the feather brush to remove all dust. It must be wiped with a soft linen cloth, and finally polished with buff-skin. If there is any oil or grease on any part it must be taken off with a linen cloth, moistened with spirits of wine, and then polished with buff-skin.” 

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the operation of lighthouses was often a family undertaking. While the keepers maintained and operated the lighthouse, women raised the children and tended to the salt-sprayed and wind-whipped garden. Though the assigned lighthouse keepers were men, there were numerous occasions where women performed light-keeping duties. There is a vague statement in the aforementioned Light-Keeper’s manual that states that “If it should be necessary for the keeper immediately in charge to quit” or if he dies of a massive coronary “some competent person must temporarily relieve him.” In 1882, if the keeper at Yaquina Head had fallen ill or if he had business in Newport (which, because of the decrepit condition of the roads, was an all-day affair) someone, possibly the keeper’s wife, would operate and maintain the lighthouse.

Conditions in the 19th Century at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse were Spartan and often monotonous. The operation of the lighthouse took precedence over all other family considerations. From sunset to sunup, 365 days a year for decades, the families stationed at Yaquina Head lit the sea lanes of Oregon’s Central Coast and helped make the dangerous journey of Pacific Northwest mariners safer.

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Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has eliminated lighthouse tours, closed the interpretive center and restricted access to the base of the lighthouse tower. The good news is that the BLM has not yet canceled Christmas and has thankfully waived the $7 entrance fee. Also, the tide pools, Quarry Cove and Salal Hill Trails and the wheelchair accessible Lighthouse Drive are open to autumn amblers. The trails and the road provide visitors with access to the outside of the lighthouse and with exceptional views of sunning seabirds. Visit next spring and summer to witness 60,000 common murres laying their pear-shaped eggs on the guano-covered rocks. Fall brings warm days, brown pelicans, the occasional peregrine falcon and, especially during early weekday mornings, very few people.

Blm.gov has a link to the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area that includes photographs and videos of the lighthouse and the area’s abundant wildlife along with a printable park brochure that includes directions and a color map. For you COVID-19 “deputized” teachers, in the Quick Links section there are downloadable science and history lessons for your children and grandchildren.