Cath's quilts and other unimportant things: LH

Monday, September 26, 2022

LH - Yaquina Head

It was an absolutely gorgeous day to visit this lighthouse.

But the lighthouse did not have an auspicious beginning. After Congress appropriated $90,000, construction work began on September 1, 1871 but was often delayed due to the tempestuous Oregon winter. Given its exposed location, the station was in a constant battle with nature. The report of the Lighthouse Board for 1880 describes the struggle.

This is ... an exposed headland where violent gusts of wind are not infrequent. The soil near the upper surface is very friable and is filled with gravel and small pebbles. During squalls the face of the cliff is swept by the winds and great quantities of sand and gravel are lifted from their beds and driven against the buildings, injuring the shutters and breaking the glass. To screen the station in a moderate degree against this influence a close board fence about 8 feet high was built, in August, around the crest of the bluff close up to the margin, to arrest as far as practicable the flight of the gravel and throw it back upon the beach below. It has worked very satisfactorily. In January, the roof of the dwelling was greatly injured, the fences were blown down, the pickets broken off, and the displaced material scattered, drift-like, over the station. In October and January, sea-fowls broke, in the nighttime, several panes of glass in the lantern.