In 1855 Pigeon Point was formally recommended to be the site of the lighthouse but it wasn't until the wreck of two more ships and a the lose of many lives the public pressured the Lighthouse Board for the money for building the lighthouse. In 1868, $90,000 was appropriated to build a first order light at Point Año Nuevo or vicinity. Two years later the land for the light was purchased - an island off of Point Año Nueva and "one and one-half acres of the extreme tip of Pigeon Point (and) nine acres about one-third mile inland for water privileges..."
Pigeon Point lay low on the coast with no surrounding highlands. It was necessary to build a tower style lighthouse typical of the east coast. George R. Putnam, Commissioner of Lighthouses in 1924, reported that the first order fresnel lens for Pigeon Point "...appears to be the second lens placed in commission at Cape Hatteras L.S. (North Carolina). When a new (and present) Cape Hatteras tower was built in 1870, the lense was removed from the old tower and later shipped to Pigeon Point." (Umbrella Guide to California Lighthouses, Sharlene and Ted Nelson, 1993)
The Point was recently named a California State Historic Park.