Lonely lighthouses save many lives

Mary Anderson -

The Cape Mendocino Lighthouse was relocated to Shelter Cove and restored with a lot of hard work. Hopefully, a visitor center can be built in the future to welcome guests and share the history of the lighthouse. The only other thing missing is the original lens, which is currently located at the Humboldt County Fairgrounds in Ferndale. 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lecture series continued at the Healy Senior Center on Tuesday evening. BLM Archaeologist Dave Johnson gave a power point presentation on the history of lighthouses, focusing on North Coast lighthouses.

The Egyptians were first to build lighthouses. The oldest surviving lighthouse dates to 20 B.C. and is located in Spain. A Roman lighthouse in Britain is a close second, having been built in 40 A.D. The first American lighthouse was built in 1716 in Boston and a second was built at Sandy Hook, New Jersey in 1674. The tallest American lighthouse was built at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in 1872. About 1,500 lighthouses were built in the U.S. but there have never been more than 50 operating at any one time. In places where lighthouses were not practical, light ships were anchored off shore.

The purpose of lighthouses is to aid ships in navigating dangerous waters. The lights were fueled with whale oil, which was later replaced with lard, which in turn gave way to kerosene. The source of the light is called the lamp. The lamp is magnified with prisms.

Eight lighthouses were built along the North Coast from Mendocino to Del Norte and they were needed because the area was plagued with shipwrecks. There were 218 shipwrecks recorded along the Mendocino Coast, 132 along the Humboldt Coast, and a bit fewer than 100 along the Del Norte Coast. Thirty-two people died in a shipwreck off Centerville Beach.

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Photo Susan Gardner

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