Yaquina Head Oregon
Harbour Lights #443

For many years, this popular lighthouse was known as Cape Foulweather. It seems the ship delivering the materials to build the lighthouse made a geographical error and left them at Yaquina Head. The engineer in charge of construction decided it was too difficult to move the materials to the correct site, since there were no roads, so he just went ahead and built the huge lighthouse.

It was several years before the government realized that Cape Foulweather was actually located at Yaquina Head, three miles from the mouth of Yaquina Bay. Despite the mix-up in its beginnings, Yaquina Head is one of the most popular light stations in the United States – attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

The picturesque setting for Oregon’s tallest sentinel is a narrow, rugged point that juts due west into the Pacific Ocean, north of Newport. On August 20, 1873, head keeper Fayette Crosby walked up the 114 steps to light the wicks for the first time – giving mariners much-needed navigation to traverse the dangers of Oregon’s jagged rock coast.Yaquina Head was outfitted with a First Order Fresnel Lens and was lighted with oil wicks until 1966, when it became fully automated. The same Fresnel lens has been in continual use from the beginning. Sitting 162 feet above sea level, its beam can be seen for some 20 miles, emitting a unique pattern: 2-seconds on/2-seconds off/2-seconds on/14-seconds off.

While the light itself is under the care of the US Coast Guard, the Salem Bureau of Land Management and a devoted corps of volunteers provide maintenance and tours of the lighthouse. The much-photographed white tower with its green lantern and red dome is the centerpiece for the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. To help raise funds for upkeep, the Bureau opened a new interpretive center in May 1997 that houses many valuable documents, photographs and mementoes of the sentinel’s 130-year history.

Over the decades, Yaquina Head has been tormented with violent storms, and in 1920 it was struck by lightning. Various forms of protection have been used over the years, and amazingly, the lighthouse has experienced relatively little damage. In fact, the structure is within 1-inch of being perfectly straight!

Along the romantic, rugged Pacific Coast Highway, visitors can see eight Oregon lighthouses. But with all these choices, Yaquina Head is by far the most visited and, indeed, is ranked as one of the most popular light stations in the United States.

Each Harbour Lights rendition of Yaquina Head generates a donation to maintain the lighthouse for future generations. Yaquina Head: truly one of the Great Lighthouses of the World.