Point No Point Light Station, Hansville Washington

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The Point No Point Station, built on a shallow sandspit where Admiralty Inlet curves south to become Puget Sound, stands at the gateway to the port cities of Seattle, Everett, Bremerton, Tacoma, and Olympia.

The station and its site are important both functionally and historically. Because of its pivotal position, the light (automated in 1977) is and probably will remain an operational aid to navigation. Since 1975, the station also has been the site of a radar installation (part of the Puget Sound Vessel Traffic Service). The lighthouse and nearby crew quarters, built in 1879, ten years before Washington became a state, still exist as fine examples of the simple, classic designs of their period.

The name Point No Point generally is believed to have been bestowed by Charles Wilkes, commander of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) who put it on his Admiralty Inlet charts of 1841. The point also was the place where, in 1855, Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens met with members of Indian tribes from both sides of Hood Canal and much of the Olympic Peninsula to work out a treaty by which Indians ceded to the United States the land lying from the crest of the Olympic Mountains to Puget Sound.

The history is reasonably well documented. The original light station logs have been preserved. The guest register still is in use in the station.

The Point No Point Light Station was the first on Puget Sound proper and one of the first three on the Admiralty Inlet/Puget Sound waterway.

The first navigational light on the waterway was built in 1860 at Admiralty Head on Whidbey Island, east of the entrance to Admiralty Inlet. With increasing ship traffic, however, and with vessels tending to hug the other shore, it soon became apparent that lights were more necessary on the west side of the Inlet, where a number of shipwrecks had lent urgency to the need. In 1879, thus, two new lights were established, one at Point Wilson, opposite Admiralty Head, and the other 20 miles southeast at Point No Point. The Point Wilson light was placed in operation on December 15^th, 1879, the one at Point No Point two weeks later, on New Year's Day, 1880.

Of these early stations, the one at Point No Point has been the least changed, remaining essentially as it was in the 19^th Century.

This structure is similar in detail to West Point Light which is about 18 miles southeast and on the opposite side of the Sound. These stations apparently went through similar evolutions with the replacements of the original fog bells in 1900 with trumpets.

The major original structures at Point No Point were the light tower itself, a timbered stand south of the light that held a bell serving as the first fog signal and, a short distance to the west, a quarters building to house the keeper, his assistant and their families. In 1900, the fog bell gave way to horns which were housed in an addition on the east side of the light tower. Although the quarters building has undergone some interior modifications (bathrooms, kitchens, etc.), its appearance is little changed from what it was in 1879.

There also was a barn and a boathouse and dock (until 1913 at least, there were no roads to the area, and all transport to and from the station was by water). The barn may be the existing office/shop building (possibly moved from its original location), but the boathouse and dock have long since disappeared.

At Admiralty Head, the light station was first moved to a new building and location in 1903, then abandoned in the mid-1920s as no longer needed. At Point Wilson, a new tower was built in 1914 to replace the original one, leaving the Point No Point light the only one still operating in its 19^th Century structure.

For more than 30 years, the light station served as a community center for the people settling on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula.

The original lightkeeper's log tells of his frequent trips, either by trail through the forest or by skiff around Foulweather Bluff, to pick up mail at the mill town of Port Gamble on the far side of the Peninsula. In 1890, this community function was formalized, and until 1914 the light station was the area's first Post Office, with the keeper's wife serving as Postmistress. The first one-room schoolhouse for the district was located on a sandbar a short distance west of the station, serving the community until about 1913 when a new school was built on higher ground.

The light tower is a short, squat building consisting of the 1879 light structure and, on the east side, the fog signal addition of 1900. Immediately to the west of the tower is a small storage house, built in 1892 for the oil that once fueled the lamp. Both buildings are of masonry construction.

The quarters building is frame, with side-by-side living units facing northwest up the Inlet. The main wing is of two stories, each unit including a parlor, dining room, and hallway on the first floor and three bedrooms and a bath on the second. In a one-story wing at the back are the two kitchens and wood-storage areas now serving as utility rooms. The exterior of the building is starkly simple but is none-the-less handsome and well proportioned, having a distinctly 19^th Century and maritime character.

The picturesque old light tower and quarters buildings are central features of a striking marine and mountain view. Immediately behind them are the busy shipping lanes and the cliffs and rolling hills of Whidbey Island. In the distance are the snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Range, from those in British Columbia above Mount Baker on the north to majestic Mount Rainier above Seattle's skyline on the south.

The Light Station property already is marked as the site of the Point No Point Treaty of 1855, a critical one in the series of accords that opened up the then new Washington Territory.

The treaty council held at Point No Point on January 25^th and 26^th, 1855, was more than a purely local affair. It involved tribes from both sides of Hood Canal and from substantial parts of the northern Olympic Peninsula as well. The treaty was the third of ten negotiated by Governor Stevens in late 1854 and 1855 which, in effect, extinguished Indian title to most of the lands west of the Rockies and north of the Columbia River. At the first two councils, both on the east side of Puget Sound, the negotiations had been easy, with the Indian leaders quickly won over by promises of schools, medical assistance, protection from invaders, and monetary payments in exchange for the land and removal of the tribes to reservations. At Point No Point, on the other hand, Stevens ran into his first difficulties, difficulties to be echoed in later councils and to erupt into widespread uprisings throughout much of the new Territory a short time later. Some of the Indian spokesmen, particularly those of the Skokomish Tribe, objected to giving up as much of their land as was being asked and, further, disliked the idea of sharing a single reservation with neighboring tribes. In the end, however, they were won over by the Stevens proposal and, on the second day of the council, signed the treaty. It is of interest to note that, although the treaty document calls for a single reservation, two eventually were provided, one for the Skokomish near the southern end of Hood Canal, the other on Gamble Bay near Point No Point.

A monument commemorating the treaty negotiations stands on the light station grounds, placed there in 1956 by the Kitsap County Historical Society and other organizations.

Site Description

The brick masonry light structure consists of three joined elements: a rectangular fog signal house (50 feet by 18.1 feet), a square tower (10 feet on a side) and a rectangular office (12 feet by 10 feet). The exterior walls of the three elements are stuccoed.

The fog signal house has three circular openings, one each on the north, east, and south sides, through which the trumpets projected. The tower joins on the west side and rises to a height of 28.5 feet. Access to the octagonal lantern is gained by a metal ladder. The lantern is glazed with large rectangular panes, one per side. There is a small door to the walkway. This walkway is supported on the exterior by sixteen large decorative wood brackets, four per side. The lens, marked USLNS 406, is a fourth order of the revolving type. The office, lying west of the tower, consists of one room with painted brick walls and exposed chamfered rafters. It is covered with a wood-shingled roof with decorative woodwork in the gable.

Color Scheme:
Grey: base
Dark Green: woodwork, railings, lantern
White: walls
Red: roof
Metallic Aluminum: ball ventilator atop lantern

Light Characteristics: 3 flashes on 10 sec period 0.1 sec flash
1.9 sec eclipse 0.1 sec flash
1.9 sec eclipse 0.1 sec flash 5.9 sec
Light List #2284
Height of focal plane above sea level: 27 feet
Range of light: 19 miles
Light Specs: 40,000 candlepower electric 300 watts

An associated nearby building is the oil house which was used for storing the fuel for the lamp.

The metal-sheathed oil house, 8' feet by 12' feet is located directly to the rear of the office section of the lighthouse. The door in the gable end leads directly from the exterior into the storage room. Although the corrugated sheet metal roof is now bereft of its ventilator, the building retains enough of its original character and fabric to indicate its intended function. This building and the light structure form a unified grouping at the end of the point protected by a stone breakwater.

At the entrance to the station are located the Keeper's dwelling and the office/shop. These wood-frame buildings of no discernible style or date, are typical of utilitarian structures common on government facilities. Both have undergone modifications through the years as dictated by changing lifestyles and usages. The remoteness of these structures from the light itself tends to divide the complex into two distinct groups.

Southwesterly View (1970)

(1991)

(1991)