Keepers lived at this Lighthouse in Alaska until 1984

Five Finger Light Station, Petersburg Alaska

Date added: August 03, 2024

Categories:
Alaska
Lighthouse

Looking northwest at the lighthouse and hoist house, roofs of the carpenter shop and boathouse are visible in the foreground (2003)

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Five Finger Light Station is one of sixteen staffed navigational lights established by the U.S. Government in Alaska. Since 1902, it has been part of a system of navigational aids to safely guide commercial and recreational vessels through the dangerous and heavily traveled Southeast Alaska waterway known as the Inside Passage. Located south of the city of Juneau and north of the city of Petersburg at the entrance to Stephens Passage, Five Finger Light Station began operation March 1^st, 1902, on the same day as Sentinel Island Light Station north of Juneau. These were the first U.S. lighthouses built in Alaska. The U.S. Lighthouse Service built the concrete lighthouse and hoist house that stand at the station in 1935 after the original wood frame lighthouse burned. The lighthouse is a good example of Modern Movement architecture, popular in the 1930s for concrete buildings, and adapted by the U.S. Lighthouse Service as the agency replaced the original wood frame lighthouse buildings at many of its sixteen staffed stations in Alaska. Two original station buildings, the boathouse and the carpenter and paint shop, still stand at Five Finger. The Coast Guard stopped assigning keepers to the station in 1984 when the light was automated. The station continues to guide vessels through Stephens Passage today.

The discovery of rich gold deposits on upper Yukon River tributaries at the close of the nineteenth century prompted a massive rise in the number of ships navigating the Inside Passage, a safer route for ships to travel through southeast Alaskan waters than the open ocean route to the west. In the late 1890s, watercraft of every description converged upon the Pacific Northwest ports to sail north. Once they passed British Columbia waters, there were few guides through the Inside Passage. Fog, rain, strong tides, and a rocky shoreline made this passage particularly difficult, especially for large steamers overloaded with prospectors and freight. Over three hundred accidents in Inside Passage waters were reported in 1898. Although Alaska's governors had been urging the U.S. Government to mark navigation hazards along Alaska's coasts for over a decade, only a few markers and buoys had been installed. In 1901, Congress appropriated funds for two lighthouses including $22,500 for a light in The Five Fingers group of islands south of Juneau. Built on the southeasternmost island in the group and originally identified in the Light List as Southeast Five-Finger Islands, Five Finger Light Station started operating on March 1^st, 1902, sharing the honor with Sentinel Island Light Station north of Juneau, as one of the first two U.S.-built lighthouses operating in Alaska.

The original Five Finger Light Station had a square light tower on a two-story wood dwelling. The structure also housed the fog signal apparatus, a Daboll trumpet. The tower displayed a fourth-order fixed white light visible 13¾ miles, 68 feet above mean high water. The station was improved with a third class radio beacon in late 1931 becoming the sixth in Alaska with such equipment. On December 8^th, 1933, fire destroyed the lighthouse and the adjacent radio beacon building. The crew of the lighthouse tender Cedar, landing supplies at the station at the time, helped the keepers save the boathouse and carpenter shop. The U.S. Lighthouse Service constructed a new concrete light and fog signal building with quarters for four, as well as a new hoist house at the site, between 1934 and 1935. The cost of construction was $92,996.10. The new station stands ten feet east of the original site.

By 1936, the U.S. Coast Guard Light List reported the radio beacon had been upgraded to Class B and identified Five Fingers as a distance finding station. The fog signal, now an air diaphone, and radio beacon at the station were synchronized so that by noting the time elapsed between the reception of the two sounds in a vessel pilot house and dividing the same by five, a close approximation of a vessel's distance from the station in miles could be obtained. In addition, the light characteristics changed. The lantern now displayed two white flashes every ten seconds visible up to 15 miles, 81 feet above water. The apparatus illuminant was listed as a 375 millimeter, electric-powered lens.

Five Finger Light Station was the last station in Alaska to be automated and unmanned. A 1979 USCG Local Notice to Mariners announced that the fog horn at the station had been permanently discontinued. In 1984, the U.S. Coast Guard removed the keepers. The Juneau Lighthouse Association, a non-profit organization, leased the property in 1997 from the U.S. Coast Guard and in 2004 became the owner. The light, however, continues to operate and the site serves as a weather reporting station for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Site Description

Five Finger Light Station is at the north end of the southernmost island of The Five Fingers, a group of islands in Stephens Passage, approximately 37 miles northwest of the city of Petersburg in Southeast Alaska. The island is 2.9 acres in size. The U.S. Lighthouse Service built the combined keeper's quarters and light tower of reinforced concrete in 1934-1935 after a fire destroyed the original wood frame building. The building has decorative piers at the corners of the building and tower, and between the window openings of the building characteristic of Modern Movement architecture. The present building stands ten feet east of the original lighthouse site. Other buildings at the station include a boathouse and a carpenter shop built in 1902, and a hoist house built in 1934. All are located around a concrete dock that is on the east side, or front, of the lighthouse. Northwest of the lighthouse is a helicopter pad constructed in 1965.

The buildings are painted white with green trim. The U.S. Lighthouse Service and its successor, the U.S. Coast Guard, regularly maintained the buildings until leasing them in 1997 to the Juneau Lighthouse Association, and transferring ownership to the group in 2004. The U.S. Coast Guard continues to service the light, which was automated in 1984.

The lighthouse is a two-story reinforced concrete building built into the side of a hill on the island. The building measures 40 by 40 feet. A 13 by 13-foot tower with a cylindrical glass and metal lantern rises 68 feet from the center of the building's flat roof. Inside the building on the upper level are four bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen-living room area, a storage room, and a radio room. The lower level, referred to as the basement in the 1934-1935 construction drawings, is only partially excavated and originally contained all the necessary machinery in duplicate.

Centered on the facade on the lower level is a double-leaf door. Paired 1/1 double-hung sash windows are set into the wall on either side of the doorway. Similar windows are located above the door and south window; a smaller 1/1 double-hung sash window occupies the space above the smaller north window.

The exposed north elevation of the building is only one-story in height and has a pair of 1/1 double-hung windows on the right side and a door on the left that leads to a small enclosed area. This door is accessed by a flight of stairs parallel to the north side of the building that ascends from the dock. The west elevation has a pair of 1/1 double-hung windows in the center, flanked by single 1/1 double-hung windows. The upper half of the south elevation has three pairs of 1/1 double-hung windows evenly spaced; the lower half of the south elevation, which is only partially exposed, contains a pair of 1/1 double-hung windows to the east and a smaller opening that contains an exhaust vent.

The tower exhibits unique corners that are cut away, giving them a multi-faceted surface. Walls, modestly recessed from the tower elevations, rise at the tower's corners to form a partially enclosed gallery around the lantern. The tower elevations are punctuated by 1/1 double-hung windows. Windows occupy the top one-third on all elevations, the middle one-third on the north and south elevations, and the bottom one-third on the north elevation only. The east elevation also has a door at its base that provides access to the roof. A projecting band encircles the tower directly above the door. A cylindrical metal watch room rises from the center of the tower and is topped by a metal and glass lantern. The glass is broken horizontally by thin metal muntins that form diamond-shaped panes. The roof of the lantern is capped by a ventilator ball. The lantern room contains a modern VRB-25 optic showing a white flash every ten seconds. The light has an 18-mile range and a focal plane of 81 feet above sea level.

A flagpole rises from the southeast corner of the roof and a chimney from the northeast corner.

Built in 1902, the Boathouse is one of the original station buildings. Located 25 feet southeast of the lighthouse, the boathouse is a wood-framed, 20 by 30-foot building with shiplap siding and a slightly overhanging hipped roof. The north elevation has two garage doors, the left one slightly larger than the right. The east elevation has two multi-paned single-sash windows and a personnel door. The south and west elevations are unadorned.

The other original building at the station, the Carpenter and Paint Shop, is immediately west of and parallel to the boathouse. The shop is a wood frame, 12 by 20 foot single-story building on a raised foundation with a slightly overhanging gable roof with brackets. The north elevation has a double-leaf door centrally placed. The other elevations are unadorned.

The hoist house stands 36 feet northeast of the lighthouse and was built in 1934. It is a one-story, concrete, 10 by 12 foot building on a raised foundation. The building has a twelve-light metal sash window in its east elevation, a 24-light metal sash window in its south elevation, and a personnel door set into the west elevation, which is accessed by a short flight of stairs. To the northeast of the building is a massive concrete footer that supported one of three legs of a derrick that once stood at the site.

On the east side of the lighthouse, a concrete dock extends from the boathouse and carpenter shop to the hoist house.

Helicopter pad. Accessed by a flight of stairs, the large square wooden platform is twenty feet northwest of the station. It was added at an unknown date, believed to be during the 1960s.