Point Arena Lighthouse

History of the Point Arena Lighthouse

The first lighthouse was built at Point Arena to warn of Point Arena Rocks which sit about 2.5 miles from shore. The first tower stood 100' tall and the had a single 2.5 story residence. The keeper shared this residence with the three assistant keepers and all of the families. This lead to pretty stressful situations at the station. Even though the keepers petitioned the Government to add additional dwellings, the requests fell on deaf ears.

On April 18, 1906, the Great San Francisco earthquake destroyed the entire station. The keepers and their families lived in tents while the station was being rebuilt. However, when the station was rebuilt, it included four structures as residences. The tower gained fifteen feet over the previous one and was built of reinforced concrete to ensure it would stand tall against another quake.

The area of Northern California where Point Arena is located sees its fair share of foggy weather, as noted in this picture. In fact, the old fog signal station was powered by wood-burning boilers that could use up to one hundred tons of wood in a really foggy year.

Directions: From the Town of Point Arena, take Highway 1 north to Lighthouse Road. Follow Lighthouse Road to the end.

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