This was the last manned Lighthouse built in Alaska

Cape Decision Light Station, Sitka Alaska

Date added: August 04, 2024

Categories:
Alaska
Lighthouse

Looking north northwest at the lighthouse, boardwalk, and dock (2004)

Do you have an update on the current status of this structure? Please tell us about it in the comments below.

Cape Decision Light Station was the last of 16 staffed lights established by the U.S. Government in Alaska. Since its lighting in 1932, 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. The lighthouse, the main building at the site, housed the light, fog signal, and radio equipment, offices, and living quarters for three keepers. It is, like many of its predecessors in Alaska, a reinforced concrete building with modest Art Moderne influences. The original lamp installed in the original lantern at the Cape Decision station was the first electric one used at an Alaskan lighthouse. In 1974, the Coast Guard automated the light and stopped assigning keepers to the station. Today, a light at Cape Decision continues to guide vessels passing between the Gulf of Alaska, Chatham and Sumner Straits. While a fire in 1989 destroyed several of the station's wood frame auxiliary buildings and boardwalk, the buildings and structures that remain, particularly the lighthouse, continue to convey the importance of maritime commerce and transportation routes in the history of Alaska.

The Inside Passage has been a major transportation route in Southeast Alaska for hundreds of years. It provided a safer route for ships and boats to travel than through the open Gulf of Alaska to the west. Although safer, the numerous small islands, sharp turns, and narrow channels combine with frequent fog and heavy precipitation to make travel through the Inside Passage treacherous. Between 1902 and 1932, the U.S. Lighthouse Board and its successor the U.S. Lighthouse Service built and staffed 12 light stations in Southeast Alaska to aid navigation and to support the development of commerce, industry, and communication.

During the 1920s, the number of salmon canneries, herring salteries, and reduction plants along the coasts bordering Chatham and Sumner Straits increased. Larger boats that could not pass through Wrangell Narrows used Chatham Strait accessing it by passing Cape Decision. Many deep-sea fishing vessels entered and exited the Inside Passage near the cape. Shipping companies and fishermen appealed to the U.S. Lighthouse Service to upgrade the acetylene light that then existed on the Spanish Islands. The Lighthouse Service determined that a lighted navigational aid with fog Signal and radio equipment was needed in the area, and selected for a station Cape Decision at the southernmost tip of Kuiu Island, about ten miles north of the Spanish Islands.

On February 13^th, 1921, President Woodrow Wilson signed Executive Order 3406 reserving approximately 216 acres of southern Kuiu Island for lighthouse purposes. After the U.S. Lighthouse Service requested money for several years, in July 1929 Congress appropriated $59,400 to build Cape Decision Light Station on the island. Construction began in September of that year. Delayed by poor weather and insufficient funding, the station, at a total cost of $158,000, did not begin operation until March 15^th, 1932. The lighthouse, which also housed three keepers, is a reinforced concrete Art Moderne-influenced building. Wood frame lighthouses built in the early 1900s in Alaska proved inadequate to meet the often harsh weather conditions. Cape Decision was the last staffed light station established in Alaska.

The light tower was topped by a third-order iron lantern which housed a fixed third-order lens with a 300-watt electric lamp. It was the first light in Alaska powered by electricity. Cape Decision Light Station was also equipped with a fog signal and Class B radio beacon. The original fog signal consists of two No. 425 tyfon foghorns mounted on the southwest corner of the roof. In 1962, these were replaced by a single Supertyphon TF150/255-2B. The fog signal and radio beacon were synchronized thus acting as a distance finding station. By noting the time elapsed between the reception of the two sounds in the pilot house of the vessel and dividing the same by five, a close approximation of the vessel's distance from the station in miles could be obtained.

In 1974, the U.S. Coast Guard automated the station and removed the keepers. A 1,000-watt electric bulb powered by solar panels replaced the original third-order lens which is now at the Clausen Museum in Petersburg, Alaska. In 1996, the light source was changed to a Vega VRB-25 aerobeacon.

In 1989, a fire destroyed the wooden buildings at the station but not the lighthouse. Several buildings and structures still stand at the station and the light continues to operate. The Cape Decision Lighthouse Association, a non-profit organization, leased the buildings and structures in 1997 from the U.S. Coast Guard and received title to them in 2004. The U.S. Coast Guard continues to operate and maintain the light.

Site Description

Cape Decision Light Station is located at the south end of Kuiu Island, immediately to the north of the junction of Chatham and Sumner Straits in Southeast Alaska. In the area, tidal currents are strong, fog is frequent, and numerous dangerous rocks are present. Before construction of the station, which was completed in 1932, an acetylene light stood on one of the Spanish Islands about ten miles south of Cape Decision.

In July 1929, the Lighthouse Board received funding from Congress to establish the station at Cape Decision on land previously withdrawn by executive order from the Tongass National Forest. Construction began in September. Insufficient funds and poor weather delayed work. The light, fog signal, and radio station started operating on March 15^th, 1932. The Lighthouse Board later constructed several wood frame buildings at the site, including a large boathouse, hoist house, and blacksmith shop. An accidental fire in 1989 destroyed these wood buildings, four fuel tanks, and a portion of the dock. The lighthouse and paint shed constructed in 1932 still stand. Also at the site today are a boardwalk, dock, seawall, dam, and helicopter pad.

In 1997, the nonprofit Cape Decision Lighthouse Society leased the site from the U.S. Coast Guard. In 2004, the society received title to the buildings and structures, however, the Coast Guard maintains the light.

The lighthouse is a one story, reinforced concrete Art Moderne influenced building set on a raised basement. Measuring 46 by 46 feet the base is adorned with a minimalist cornice, a projecting entry vestibule centered on the facade, and recessed panels that occupy nearly all of, and are centered on, each elevation. A short, broad flight of fifteen concrete stairs with solid handrails leads to the entrance from the boardwalk. The front of the vestibule contains a single 15-light door flanked by 2/2 windows; windows also occupy the sides of the vestibule. Set into the facade on either side of the entrance are two 2/2 sash windows. Centered on the east elevation is a paired window, each with four lights, flanked by 2/2 windows. The south elevation has asymmetrical fenestration. From west to east on the elevation are a paired set of 2/2 windows (a paired set of 2/2 windows is boarded), a single 2/2 window and two paired sets of 2/2 windows. The west elevation contained only one centered window opening and it is currently boarded.

The basement has a double door at the west corner of the south elevation. The east and west elevations have no openings. A 1933 photograph of the facade shows two 2/2 windows on each side of the staircase at the basement level; these windows are no longer visible on the exterior.

The first-floor elevations are painted white and the basement elevations are gray. The roof is painted red with the exception of a white field on the east side that contains the large black letters CDE.

Projecting from the flat roof are both a chimney and the tower. The chimney rises from the northwest corner of the roof and, like the base, exhibits shallow recessed panels on each elevation.

A 14 by 14 foot reinforced concrete tower with a lantern rises 40 feet from the center of the roof. It features recessed panels on each of the elevations. At the base of the tower on the north side is a door that provides access to the roof. Fenestration on the tower is limited to a boarded window opening on the north side and a window centered vertically on the east side. Surmounting the tower's cornice is the lantern gallery, which is enclosed by a two-tiered metal pipe railing. The cylindrical metal watch room rising from the center of the gallery 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 original third-order fixed lens powered by a 300-watt electric lamp displayed two white flashes every 15 seconds of 24,000 candlepower and was visible 15.6 nautical miles in clear weather. It was the first electric-powered light installed in an Alaskan lighthouse. Today the lantern houses a Vega VRB-25 acrobeacon which flashes white every five seconds and is visible up to 18 nautical miles.

Inside the lighthouse on the main floor are three bedrooms, a galley, bathroom, radio room, and workshop/generator room. The Coast Guard dismantled the radio equipment in 1997. NOAA meteorological equipment occupies another small room on this floor. The basement has small storage rooms, an electric water pump and filter system, and an air compressor that powered the first-class fog signal. Water is collected in two 10,000-gallon cisterns inside the lighthouse from a rain catchment system on the roof. Originally, fresh water was piped from a small stream nearby. Attached to the lighthouse are two 5,000-gallon fuel tanks.

Constructed in 1931, the paint shed is an 8 by 8 by 10 foot wood frame building covered with corrugated metal. It is a short distance north of the dock.

A wood plank boardwalk with a two-tiered wood railing connects the lighthouse to the 60-foot-long dock crossing the octagonal helicopter pad. The 1989 fire destroyed part of the boardwalk. It extends north and east of the lighthouse.

The dock has a wood deck and an understructure of creosoted timbers set on concrete footings. It had a boom derrick system to raise and lower boats, a tramway, a boathouse, a hoist house, a blacksmith shop, and four fuel tanks. The buildings and structures were constructed during the 1930s. The 1989 fire destroyed these and part of the dock. Only the dock was rebuilt. The dock is northeast of the lighthouse.

A walkway extends parallel to the east side of the lighthouse to a small grassy area in the back. It is enclosed by a two-tiered handrail that is a continuation of the handrail on the eastern side of the boardwalk. South and west of the lighthouse and backyard are six-inch thick concrete seawalls set on the rocks. Also to the south is a small footbridge connecting Kuiu Island with a small rocky island.

The concrete and log dam is 45 feet long and 5 feet high. It is approximately 300 feet north of the lighthouse. Although the original water system is no longer used, the dam still exists.

Helicopter pad. This is an octagonal wood structure in the center of the light station, a short distance north and east of the lighthouse and south and west of the dock. It was built in the mid-1960s.

Over the years, keepers established two trails. A .9-mile trail connects the light station and a protected cove on the east side of the island where a trapper's cabin stood. A four-and-a-half-mile trail connects the light station with Port McArthur. During the years the light station was staffed, the trail was occasionally used to transport supplies. Only a short portion of each trail is within the light station reserve.