San Francisco's Historic Lighthouses

If you wish to avoid blinding fog, dazzling sunlight, bone-chilling wind, strenuous hikes— and stupendous ocean views, the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge, stirring cityscapes, close wildlife encounters… Instead, one can spend a very satisfying and enlightening time in the comforts of home surfing the internet to explore San Francisco’s enchanting lighthouses and the history they enabled to unfold as our young nation embraced our western shores. 

Golden Gate Bridge Engulfed in Fog

This blog post is the first of two. Imagine approaching the California coast to find your way into San Francisco Bay in the fog before lighthouses and the Golden Gate Bridge provided visual guidance during the day. Night time navigation was far more treacherous!

The second blog post in this series will usher the reader/imaginary ship through the Golden Gate into the relative safety of the bay— and describe the aids to navigation designed to assure nautical safety inside.

The end of this post will list resources for the intrepid explorer of lighthouse lore. There are hours of enjoyment ahead.

It All Began With the Gold

With the 1848 discovery of gold in her hills, California and, indeed, America changed forever. San Francisco, a beautiful but barren outpost, became the main port for gold seekers from around the globe. In 1849, the city’s population leaped from 900 to 20,000. Congress recognized the need to complete a survey of the entire west coast of the United States and to build seven lighthouses to guide navigation, and secure safe haven to

City of Rio de Janeiro, courtesy Mystic Seaport  

America’s expanding maritime commerce. By 1852 the coast survey was complete, and a system of lighthouses was developed to lead the new settlers and explorers safely through the dangerous waters and thick fog of the bay’s entrance. 

Despite the growing effectiveness of the lighthouses, over 300 boats ran aground near the Golden Gate during the gold rush years. The worst maritime disaster in San Francisco’s history occurred in 1901, when the steamer City of Rio de Janeiro struck Point Diablo, a few hundred feet offshore of Point Bonita. The pilot was pressured by an influential passenger to proceed in spite of darkness and thickening fog. The lives of 128 passengers were lost when the doomed ship struck rocks, quickly filled with seawater and sank to the bottom of the Bay.  

Over the years, technological advances have improved most aids to navigation— and have made the storied lighthouses and their intrepid keepers nearly obsolete. Yet, they leave behind an elegant array of architectures and marvels of engineering that enabled bay area history to unfold by land and by sea. What follows is a brief synopsis of San Francisco Bay lighthouse history.

Alcatraz Lighthouse— First on the West Coast

In July 1853, the Alcatraz Lighthouse was the first to be completed, making it the oldest major navigational light on the west coast.  Construction of the foundation for the tower

began in 1852. The tower and the keepers’ two-storied Cape Cod-style cottage were completed in 1853. New and improved technology, in the form of Fresnel lenses from France, was ordered for all planned future lighthouses. The powerful lens arrived from France in October of that year, and Head Keeper Michael Cassin lit the whale oil lamp on June 1, 1854.  Its beam could be seen up to 19 miles away. 

By 1895, Alcatraz Island had become a small city with its own post office run by the lighthouse keeper, and its own boat dock to service the growing community. Inhabitants included the lighthouse keepers and their families, and officers and soldiers from the army post, The Citadel, as it was known then.

Newer 84-foot tower and keepers' quarters, 1909.
US Coast Guard historical photo.

The original lighthouse was damaged in the 1906 earthquake, and a new lighthouse was built to the southeast of the original. By this time, the military buildings on the island were obscuring the tower,  so it was decided to build a taller tower rather than to repair the cracked one. The old lighthouse was replaced by an 84-foot tower of concrete in 1909. It sat alongside the new structure and was used as a storehouse until it was demolished between 1912 and 1913.

The lighthouse was operated and maintained by the keepers whose bag of tricks included fog horns located on the northern and southern tips of the island. Once the Penitentiary opened, its guards, who were better positioned to see advancing fog from their elevated watch towers, notified the keepers so the fog horns could be activated.

Alcatraz light tower
and ruins of keeper's quarters,
photo courtesy
Wikimedia Commons

Living on the island with maximum security prisoners required the keepers and their families to lead a unique way of life. When trouble arose in the prison, the keepers were instructed to lock their doors and windows. Fortunately, they did not need to leave their quarters to operate the lighthouse. Children who attended school in San Francisco, and wives who shopped for food and other necessities in the city, rode the same boat delivering new inmates to the prison. All passengers would be counted coming and going from the island.

The automation of the Alcatraz lighthouse with a modern beacon occurred in 1963, the year the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closed its doors. The unique island community with the spectacular views was disbanded and returned to shore and little remains of the keepers’ domain.

In 1970 a fire destroyed the keepers' quarters and other buildings on the island, including the former warden’s house. The only remaining lighthouse building is the tall cement tower equipped with a modern beacon.   

Fort Point

The first of three lighthouses constructed at Fort Point was completed in 1853, but was never used because it was still awaiting its Fresnel lens when it was torn down three months

Fort Point Light Beneath
Golden Gate Bridge

later to build Fort Winfield Scott. A second lighthouse was built in 1855. The structure built on a narrow ledge between the fort and the seawall was torn down eight years later when the Army needed to repair the eroding seawall. 

The third was built in 1908. The 27- foot iron tower was built on the parapet of Fort Point, and the houses of the three keepers perched behind on the bluff, connected by a catwalk. It

Fort Point Dining Room

was deactivated in 1934 when the Golden Gate Bridge was built because the bridge blocked the light. The second lighthouse built on the west coast is still visible when visiting Fort Point. An automated beacon and fog signal were eventually installed at the base of the bridge’s south tower.

Point Bonita Marks Entrance to San Francisco Bay

Alcatraz’s light showed the way for ships directly in front of the Golden Gate and Fort Point’s lighthouse marked the southern edge of San Francisco Bay, but another lighthouse was needed north of the Golden Gate to make the entrance visible to ships sailing up the coast

Suspension Bridge leads to Point Bonita Lighthouse.
Photo by Rachel Amy Shahvar

from the south. That lighthouse site became Point Bonita. 

Point Bonita Lighthouse, the third lighthouse on the West Coast, was completed in 1855. This lighthouse in the Marin Headlands, was the first fog signal on the West Coast using a cannon before bells, gongs, horns, and sirens were put into service. Like most lighthouses, its 56-foot brick tower was built on a high bluff. On a clear day, the bright Fresnel lens could project a beam visible 18 miles offshore. However, it was soon discovered that at 306 feet above sea level, the beacon was above the fog line and ships could not see it. 

Point Bonita Keepers' Quarters circa 1896.
Golden Gate NRA Archives

In 1877 the lighthouse was moved lower on the hill to 124 feet above sea level. The new site had a walkway around the hill cliff side with a suspension bridge to the lighthouse. For improved safety, Chinese laborers experienced in digging rail tunnels were hired to bore a 180-foot tunnel to bring supplies to the lighthouse. 

The keepers’ quarters and the boilers of the fog signal used enough coal to necessitate the construction of a dock and tramway to offload supplies for the lighthouse. Point Bonita also staffed a lifesaving station with nine surfmen who operated out of a boathouse with a rail launch for their surfboat and lifeboat, a lookout tower and crews’ quarters.

Automated in April 1981, it was the last manned lighthouse in California. Point Bonita is still an active aid to navigation. Today, the U.S. Coast Guard maintains the lighthouse and the National Park Service provides access to visitors.  

Farallon Island Light

Farallon Island Light is a lighthouse on Southeast Farallon Island.  The Farallons lie 30

Farallon Island Light

miles outside San Francisco’s Golden Gate and 20 miles south of Point Reyes. Officially part of the City and County of San Francisco, the islands are visible from the mainland on clear days.One of the highest lights in California, it was constructed in 1855 during the celebrated decade after the Gold Rush when maritime traffic sailed into the bay in large numbers. 

Stone for the construction of the lighthouse was quarried on the island. The extremely sharp slopes of the island and the jagged nature of the rock made construction very difficult. Bricks

Social event! Mail arrives on the Island.

used in the tower were carried up the rock in bundles of four and five on the backs of laborers. After an initial false start when the lantern room had to be rebuilt to house its new Fresnel lens, construction was completed and the lamp lit January 1, 1856.

A mule named Jack was kept on the island for years to carry supplies between the various parts of the station. At one time this mule was the oldest inhabitant. The federal government

Jack the Mule when lantern room was intact.

eventually put a stop to the gathering of birds’ eggs, which were sold on the San Francisco market, and to the commercial harvest of Northern Fur Seals which had become an endangered species.  

In 1939, the United States Coast Guard took over the lighthouse as it merged with the United States Lighthouse Service. By 1972, the lantern room and the Fresnel lens had been removed, and an automated aerodrome beacon was placed on the tower. Today the original Fresnel lens is on display in the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park visitor center on Hyde Street.

Point Reyes Lighthouse

Point Reyes, 35 miles north of the Golden Gate, is possibly the windiest place on the Pacific Coast and surely one of the foggiest places on the North American continent. Weeks of fog, especially during the summer months, frequently reduce visibility to hundreds of feet. The

Point Reyes Lighthouse, © Frank Schulenburg

first recorded shipwreck on the west coast occurred here in 1595— the Spanish galleon San Agustin. More than 270 years later, the 1866 sinking of the paddle steamer Labouchere in heavy fog reinforced the need for a lighthouse in the area.

Although funds to build a lighthouse were allocated in 1854, ranchers who owned the land had demanded shamefully high prices. Fifteen years later, after the Civil War, landowners became more reasonable when the Lighthouse Board began condemnation proceedings against them.

Like the Point Bonita Lighthouse, the original plans for the Point Reyes site changed to combat the area’s fog. Instead of placing the light at the top of the western-most point of the Point Reyes Headlands, it was located 275 feet down the hillside with the fog signal building 100 feet below the lighthouse. From the keepers’ quarters at the top of the hill, it was 308 steps down to the lighthouse, its equipment shed and oil house and another 338 steps down to the original fog-signal building.

First Order Fresnel Lens from Point Reyes,
photo by Eric Chan.

The Point Reyes Lighthouse lens and mechanism were constructed in France in 1867. The clockwork mechanism, glass prisms and housing for the lighthouse were shipped on a steamer around the tip of South America to San Francisco. Then the parts from France and sections of the cast iron tower were transferred to a second ship, which sailed to a landing on Drakes Bay. 

Delivering building materials to the site was a very difficult task. Materials had to be staged on Drakes Beach, then hauled up the cliff and hauled by ox-drawn carts three miles over the headlands to a point near the tip of Point Reyes, 600 feet above sea level, and then carried down to the construction site. 

Point Reyes Light, 1871-- shortly after completion.

Finally, after many years of tedious local politics, transport of materials and difficult construction, the Point Reyes Light was lit on December 1, 1870. The new light did not, however, immediately end the threat of shipwrecks. Because of this ongoing problem, a lifesaving station was established in 1890 on Great Beach, north of the lighthouse. Men walked the beaches in four-hour shifts, watching for shipwrecks and anyone in need of rescue from the frigid waters and powerful currents.

 A new lifesaving station was opened in 1927 on Drakes Bay near Chimney Rock and was active until 1968 when modern technology and the rapid response of the U.S. Coast Guard made the station obsolete. Today, it is a National Historic Landmark and can be viewed from the Chimney Rock Trail.

The historic Point Reyes Lighthouse served mariners for 105 years before it was retired from service in 1975 when the U.S. Coast Guard installed an automated light. Ownership of the lighthouse was transferred to the National Park Service, which has taken on the job of preserving this fine specimen of our heritage.

All lighthouses in the United States are now automated because it is cheaper to let electronics do the work. Many decommissioned lighthouses were transformed into inns, museums or restaurants. Today the lighthouse at Point Reyes National Seashore is a museum, where the romance of the lightkeepers' lives, the craftsmanship and the beauty of the lighthouse are lovingly preserved.

Stay tuned— more to come!

Now that we have successfully approached the fabled Golden Gate, we must navigate its relatively narrow, oft windy and fog-shrouded canyon without running aground the rocks on either side. Since “safely inside the bay” is a relative term, we’ll explore inside the bay, its unusual and historic aids to navigation, in the next post.

Virtual Exploration of Lighthouse History and Lore

There is a wealth of information about lighthouses— their origins, history, technology and people--readily available on the internet. Much of what you see in this blog post is gleaned from an enjoyable few days of surfing these resources.

U.S. Coast Guard   http://www.uscg.mil/history/h_index.asp   See the Powerpoint “History of the U.S. Lighthouse Service” for a pictorial overview of the types of lighthouses, technology used, description of Fresnel lens and its “orders.”

United States Lighthouse Society   https://uslhs.org/history/   Provides a thorough description of almost every aid to navigation historically used in the United States— with lots of enlightening lore.

National Park Service   http://www.nps.gov/history/places.htm   The National Park Service website is a very good resource if you know which lighthouse info you wish to access. Simply enter the name of the site into the search field and voila!

Lighthouses of the Bay Area   by Betty S. Veronico, Arcadia Publishing.