Pigeon Point Lighthouse, Pescadero California
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The first rays from the Pigeon Point Lighthouse flashed over the Pacific Ocean on 15 November 1872. The same lens remains intact in its lantern. The lighthouse has required no structural modifications, and it has sustained no damage from earthquakes or storms. Pigeon Point Lighthouse has been in continual service for more than a century, serving the purpose for which it was erected, to carry a light for warning or guiding ships.
None of the first lights built on the Pacific Coast are functioning in their original conditions. Eight small lighthouses built in the 1850's were created to serve the major harbors. Most of them have been demolished or severely reconstructed, some have been transformed into museums. In the 1870's the second group of lighthouse installations on the Pacific Coast was concerned with offshore coastal shipping and outer harbor conditions. One of these was the light at Pigeon Point. Conventional styled lighthouses were common on the East Coast, but there were none like the Pigeon Point Lighthouse on the West Coast.
The lens installed at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse was the first First-order light to be installed in California and was the only one until the 1890's. For nearly a quarter of a century the Pigeon Point Lighthouse was one of the most powerful lights on the Pacific Coast. The lighthouse was architecturally designed especially to accommodate the French lens. The imported Fresnel lens is still in place and could be operable. To automate the station on February 1974, an aero beacon was attached on the cat walk, or gallery, outside the lantern, but the same flashing 10 second characteristic has been retained. Pigeon Point Lighthouse is an excellent example of a working lighthouse as it was 100 years ago and as it is today.
Even in good weather ships have routinely scanned for Pigeon Point Lighthouse because it is a landfall light. It marks a promontory where coasting vessels make a course change. Because of modern navigational aids, lighthouses are not essential to large ships, but Pigeon Point Lighthouse still serves an important function for small vessels, especially recreational boats. Crews of large ships continue to use Pigeon Point Lighthouse for a reference to check against the set of the southward Humboldt Current in order to determine their expected arrival time at the San Francisco Bay heads or at the pilot vessel.
Pigeon Point Lighthouse has been long considered the most beautiful and best architectural lighthouse structure on the Pacific Coast. It is a superb example of the mid-nineteenth century traditional, classic lighthouse.
Site Description
The Pigeon Point Lighthouse and its attached work house, now generally referred to as a watch house, are built of brick. Decorative features in cut stone, chamfer wood forms, and cast iron have been used sparingly and with good taste.
The plan for the conventional lighthouse is said to have been acquired by the U. S. Government from France at the same time as six, or more, first-order Fresnel lens were ordered. The style has been classified as Italianate. Pigeon Point Lighthouse is the only tower built on the Pacific Coast according to the plan. Drawings intended specifically for the Pigeon Point Lighthouse are signed "George H. Elliot, Major of Engineers, Engineer Section, Light House Board, April 1871." Most of the working drawing detail plates and plans are signed from "Office of Light House Board, April 1871." The latter has been substituted for the month March which is crossed out. The drawings were also being used in the then 5th District, because "12th" has been plainly substituted. A label "Pigeon Point. Cal." has been pasted over another site name, presumably Bodie Island, North Carolina. For the construction at Pigeon Point the lower two of five windows were simply deleted.
The account of shipwrecks need not be repeated, but the occurrence of at least four major wrecks near Pigeon Point on the fog shrouded coast created a public clamor in the 1850's and 1860's. Nearby Franklin Point and Point Ano Nuevo also protrude treacherously. The Coast and Geodetic Survey Report written by sub-assistant W. M. Johnson, June 9th, 1855, concluded:
The insistence of constituents and the jibs of newspapers after the Civil War spurred the U. S. Congress to appropriate funds in October 1869 for the acquisition of land on the Pacific Coast, for the construction of warning signals, and for quarters for their keepers.
On 18 May 1870 the U. S. Government purchased from Clarke & Coburn for $10,000 the following:
One and one-half acres of the extreme tip of Pigeon Point. Nine acres about one-third mile inland for "water privileges." The "island" which forms the extremity of Point Ano Nuevo. Forty foot right of ways to and from the three parcels to the main road. " … the privilege and permission" of using "wood, timber, water, clay, sand, stone and other materials necessary in the erection of a lighthouse and other buildings" from the two adjoining ranchos owned by Clarke and Coburn.
In 1929 one and one-half acre strip adjoining the Pigeon Point Reservation was purchased. This is the total 4.3 acres of the site.
The contract was let for construction of the lighthouse at the highest elevation on the commanding, jagged rocky cliff, known as Pigeon Point, at approximately fifty feet above high water mark. The tower was said to have cost $125,000. The complete station with its accompanying fog signal, quarters, etc. totaled $184,625.
An engraved detail in the keystone of the doorway arch of the watch house proclaims 1871, the date of beginning construction. Work was well underway by early summer 1871 according to the Editor of a local paper, San Mateo County Times-Gazette, June 10th, 1871:
This report is significant because it destroys the ridiculous tale that it was necessary to ship bricks "round the Horn" from Norfolk, Virginia.
An automatic 12-inch steam-operated fog whistle, at the time the largest of its size, was effectively working at Pigeon Point by 10th September 1871. Also completed was a two-story Victorian house for the keeper. Its stick-detail, window molding, brick chimneys complemented the lighthouse style. A comparable portion was added in 1908 when the keeper had three assistances. These attractive, large quarters were demolished in 1960.
An early U.S. hydrographer, George Davidson, described:
Until 1930 the base had contrasting lower and upper bands; at present the complete base and the lantern are painted black. The tower base is octagonal with a 28 foot diameter. The brick tower is conical: the diameter at the base is 23 feet 4-1/4 inches and the diameter at the top is 16 feet 3-1/2 inches. The walls are 6 foot thick at the base and 3 foot thick at the top. Ornamentation is restricted to three oversized, elongated windows. They are framed by projecting, cut stone segmental arches and cut stone pilasters supporting simple cornices resting on stone sills.
A cantilevered iron gallery deck encircling the watch room below the lantern is supported by sixteen distinctive cast iron brackets. The iron work was cast by Nutting & Son in San Francisco. Recently the gallery was slightly enlarged to accommodate the modern beacon. Off the deck level is an entrance and a small window. The brass and iron polygonal lantern has vertical 9 foot 10 inch glazed frames, each one divided into three panels. The roof of the lantern is copper and has a round ventilator dome with a bronze pinnacle.
Access to the interior of the lighthouse is through the attached rectangular work house at the base of the tower. The house was designed in a restrained Eastlake or Cottage style. The rectangular gable roof has corbelled brick brackets.
A rear gable extension connects the house to the tower. The entrance door has a hooded canopy with decorative stick details of exposed braces. The rafters and end of the eaves are planed and chamfered. All projecting gables and eaves are sheathed with narrow grooved, tongued and beaded, laid planed side down. The ceilings of the hall and rooms are surfaced likewise. The floors are tile.
An interior four-foot wide hall leads to a short flight of stairs to the tower interior. On each side of the hall there is a room. Although utilitarian they are attractive. One room was intended for the storage of oil butts; the other was a work room with workbench and lockers for lamp supplies and parts. Each room has a marble mantle fireplace centered between windows. Double flues are visible in the chimney tops. One is for the fireplace draft, and the other for a ventilator. The windows are four over six. Shutters at the arched windows have been removed.
Many hypothetical stories have evolved regarding the lens installed in the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. The actual facts regarding the lens are exciting and delineate a historic significance. George R. Putnam, Commissioner of Lighthouses, Bureau of Lighthouses, stated in writing in 1924 that the Frensel lens installed at Pigeon Point previously had been installed at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, North Carolina, in 1863. (These facts are confirmed in local 1872 newspapers.)
The first lens installed in the original Cape Hatteras Lighthouse were replaced in 1854 when the tower was raised to elevate its focal plane. During the Civil War the Confederates removed the lens. When the Federals regained control of the North Carolina coast, they temporarily re-lighted the tower in June 1862 with a second-order lens. During 1863 they replaced it with a new, improved first-order Frensel lens. At the conclusion of the Civil War a new tower was built at Cape Hatteras. It was the first use of the architectural plans which were subsequently to be applied at Pigeon Point. After the second tower was lighted in September 1870, the lens were removed from the original tower before its demolition. The lens were placed in storage on 17th January 1871 at the Lighthouse Board General Depot, Staten Island, New York, and on 11th August 1871 the lens were shipped to Pigeon Point.
The bronze mounted, revolving, first-order Frensel lens was the work of the optician Henry Lepaute of Paris, and the rotating gear mechanism was made by Barbier and E'enard in Paris.
The projector revolved by a clock-work mechanism, requiring weights of about 200 pounds each. The weights were suspended on thirteen foot lengths of 3/8 inch wire cord in the core of the tower. The ray of the flashing light was brought to the focal plane at 148 feet above mean high water. The original lamp was a first-order Funck's Hydraulic Float, which burned refined lard. Eventually the oil lamp was replaced by an electric bulb, and the energy of the weights was replaced by an electric motor.
The original fog signal building and carpenter shop, both of wood frame construction with gabled roofs dating from 1908, and a concrete oil house constructed in 1909 are on the lighthouse site. Four modern family housing units at the site (1960) have no historical significance.
