Point Arena Light Station
About this property
Point Arena Light is a lighthouse in Mendocino County, California, United States, two miles (3 km) north of Point Arena, California. It is approximately 130 mi (210 km) north of San Francisco, in the Fort Point Group of lighthouses. The lighthouse features a small museum and gift shop. Guided tours of the light station as well as self-guided tours of the grounds are available daily. The first European to record Point Arena was Spaniard Bartolomé Ferrer in 1543, who named it Cabo de Fortunas ("cape of fortunes"). in 1775, lieutenant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra (commander of the schooner Sonora) renamed the cape Punta Delgado ("narrow point") during a royal expedition chartered by the Viceroyalty of New Spain to map the north coast of Alta California. Later the point and the small harbor town south of it were called Barra de Arena ("sandbar") and finally Point Arena ("sand point"). Point Arena is a narrow peninsula jutting about 1/2 mile (800 m) into the Pacific Ocean. This sandbar creates a natural hazard to navigation, hence the need for a lighthouse and fog signal. The original lighthouse at this site was constructed in 1870. The brick-and-mortar tower included ornate iron balcony supports and a large keeper residence with enough space to house several families. In April 1906, the San Francisco earthquake struck the light station. The keeper's residence and lighthouse were damaged so severely that they had to be demolished. The United States Lighthouse Board contracted with a San Francisco-based company to build a new lighthouse on the site and specified that it had to withstand earthquakes. The company chose normally built factory smokestacks, which accounts for the final design for the new Point Arena Lighthouse, featuring steel reinforcement rods encased in concrete. This was the first lighthouse built this way. The new lighthouse began operation in 1908, nearly 18 months after the quake. It stands 115 ft (35 m) tall, and featured a 1st Order Fresnel Lens, over six feet in diameter and weighing more than six tons. The lens was made up of 258 hand-ground glass prisms, all focused toward three sets of double bullseyes. These bullseyes gave Point Arena Lighthouse its unique "light signature" of two flashes every six seconds. The optics, which held an appraised value of over $3.5 million, were set in solid brass framework and built in France. Before the introduction of electricity, the lens was rotated by a clockwork mechanism. The keepers, or "wickies", hand-cranked a 160-pound weight up the lighthouse's center shaft every 75 minutes to keep the lens turning. Light was produced by a "Funck" hydraulic oil lamp that needed to be refueled every four hours and whose wicks had to be trimmed regularly. Later, two 1,000-watt electric lamps were installed to replace the oil lamp, and a 1⁄8 horsepower electric motor was installed to replace the clockworks.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Point Arena Light Station listed on the National Register?
Point Arena Light Station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 15, 1991.
What type of historic resource is Point Arena Light Station?
Point Arena Light Station is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Point Arena Light Station?
The period of significance for Point Arena Light Station is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Point Arena Light Station?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Point Arena Light Station will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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