North Head Lighthouse #2

by Robert Bales

Title

North Head Lighthouse #2

Artist

Robert Bales

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

A view of the North Head Lighthouse with a beautiful sunset. This lighthouse marks the mouth of the Columbia river. Before it was establish there were many ship wrecks at the mouth.
After Cape Disappointment Lightstation was established in 1856 to mark the entrance to the Columbia River, mariners approaching the river from the north complained they could not see the light until they had nearly reached the river. Their cry for an additional lighthouse was supported by the many shipwrecks, which occurred along the Long Beach Peninsula, just north of the cape.
The North Head lighthouse was completed and went into service in 1898. It used the first-order Fresnel lens from Cape Disappointment when the Cape Disappointment lighthouse received the smaller fourth-order lens. The lighthouse itself is only sixty-five feet tall, but it sits on a bluff 130 feet high overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Rumor is that the area surrounding the lighthouse is said to be one of the windiest places in the US. Some wind speeds have been clocked at over 150 MPH. While I was visiting the lighthouse, the volunteer told us that at one point, a wild duck was blown into the lighthouse, smashing a window and chipping the big first-order Fresnel lens. One of the rumors is that the keeper's wife couldn't take the howling of the wind day in and day out and jumped over the side of the cliff to her death.

The lighting mechanism in the lighthouse has changed many times over the years. The lighthouse started out with a massive first-order Fresnel lens which came from Navesink Lighthouse in New Jersey and burned kerosene. This lens was changed out in 1937 for a smaller fourth-order Fresnel lens which was rotated and lit by electricity. By the 1950s, the fourth-order lens was removed and replaced with a searchlight style light. In 1998, the light was again replaced with a modern marine style beacon which is still in use today. This light is visible 17 miles out to sea.

Another interesting story of this lighthouse is that the keeper of the lighthouse witnessed a submarine attack on Fort Stevens just across the river in Oregon. He was in the lantern room and saw a Japanese sub surface and take several shots at the fort with the deck gun. The keeper quickly extinguished the light and watched the attack. After a few shots, the submarine went down and was not seen again.

Uploaded

November 25th, 2015

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