The site selected was Battery Point, an islet when the tide was in. Battery Point Hill is located about two hundred yards off of the shore. It gained its name from the cannons from the Ship America that burned in the bay in 1855. The cannons were mounted on the point. The only action they saw was their firing on the Fourth of July every year.
The building progressed rapidly. As many other California lights. Battery Point's was built in a Cape Cod style. Improvements had to be made to the isthmus so that supplies could be delivered. The walls were built two feet thick. The tower was plastered and painted white, the iron lantern itself was painted red. The fourth order fresnel lens was first displayed December 10, 1856. Battery Point became the ninth California Lighthouse.
The first keeper was Theophilis Magruder. He resigned after three years when the Lighthouse Service reduced the wages of the keeper. Several other keepers served until Captain John Jeffrey arrived in 1875. The Lighthouse Board was considering shutting the light down as soon as the St. George Reef Light was finished. They reconsidered and Jeffrey and his family moved into the house.
In 1879, tragedy struck. A wooden lean-to served as the kitchen at the rear of the building. Jeffrey was in the kitchen stoking the fire when a wave rolled against the lean-to during a storm. It knocked the chimney from the roof and turned the stove over catching the kitchen on fire. As the family tried to put the fire out, another wave hit the structure and dowsed the flames. The kitchen was a total loss.
In 1952, Wayne Piland sensed that something was about to happen. He noted the silence and began to secure the building for "something", he didn't know what. A storm raged for three days. Water struck against the tower breaking the glass and hitting the lens. Water spewed into the building.
March 27, 1964, Clarence and Peggy Coons, curators of the Battery Point lighthouse, watched in horror as the town of Crescent City was struck by five tsunami waves generated from an earthquake in Alaska. The waves moved pasted the islet and crushed the town. 11 people died, and twenty-nine blocks of the town were demolished.
1953 saw the lighthouse automated. Wayne Piland was the last official lighthouse keeper. By 1965 the light was turned off and replaced by a flashing light at the end of the breakwater. Members of the Del Norte County Historical Society refurbished the old lighthouse. December 10, 1982 it was reestablished as a private aid to navigation.
©westofpch.com - All rights reserved.
The Lighthouses of Del Norte County