Hughes’ home, a two-story Victorian built inġ898 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, remains standing and is open to the public for tours.īy the late 1890s, Keeper Hughes had two children and Langlois five. The ranch is now Cape Blanco State Park, and the Hughes was the second son of Patrick and Jane Hughes, whose 2,000-acre ranch bordered the lightstation property. Hopefully they got along well, as they spent most of those years at the lighthouse together. James Langlois and James Hughes were both stationed at Cape Blanco Lighthouse for their entire career, which lasted forty-two years for Langlois and thirty-seven years for Hughes. In 1888, mineral-oil lamps replaced the lard-oil lamps used inside the lens, and in 1890 a detached brick oil house was built to store the more volatile fuel. Supplies had to be landed on the beach south of the station until a 7,000-foot roadway was built in 1885 to link up with the county road leading to Port Orford, the nearest landing. LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER JOBS OREGON WINDOWSThe roof was repaired the following year, and solid shutters were installed on the exposed sides of the dwelling to prevent the windows from being broken during sand and gravel squalls. The roof of the keepers’ dwelling was seriously damaged by a gale in February 1878, and during another storm on October 14th of that year, a large portion of the roof was torn off and the walls of the gable damaged. Burnap’s light burning brightly just up the coast made Knapp’s lamp unnecessary.ĭue to its exposed location, Cape Blanco was often buffeted by strong winds. Louis Knapp, proprietor of the town’s Knapp Hotel, was so concerned about the safety of the mariners navigating this dangerous section of the Oregon coast, that he kept a lantern burning nightly in the hotel’s large window that overlooked the sea. The town of Port Orford was established two decades before construction of the lighthouse. Burnap had been living in Port Orford, nine miles south of Cape Blanco, when he received his new assignment.Ĭape Blanco Lightstation in 1936 with both dwellings Burnap, who was serving at Oregon’s first lighthouse at Umpqua River when it collapsed in 1863. The station’s first principal keeper was Harvey B. With a focal plane of 250 feet, the light could be see from up to twenty-three miles at sea. The fixed white light from the tower’s first-order, Henry-Lepaute Fresnel lens was first exhibited on Decemand served this function well. Since the lighthouse was far from any harbor, its primary function was to warn ships away from the reefs, which extended from the cape, and to provide a position fix for navigators. The principal keeper was assigned one side, while the two assistants shared the other. A two-story, brick duplex, with seven rooms on each side, was built 125 feet south of the tower. The circular, brick tower rose to a height of fifty feet, and an oil room was attached to its base. To provide a foundation for the lighthouse, the earth was excavated to a depth of five feet, and a four-foot-thick bed of concrete was poured. The first delivery arrived in May 1870, and when the vessel was partially unloaded, a gale struck, driving the ship onto the beach and causing the loss of the remainder of the cargo. The remainder of the supplies required to construct the lighthouse had to be landed at the cape through the surf. The second kiln burned this spring were not of good enough quality, and were rejected. About eighty thousand of these brick, made last fall, were of fair quality, and were accepted and paid for. Having every reason to believe that much money could be saved, if brick could be made at the cape instead of bringing them from San Francisco, at an enormous expense for transportation, an agreement was made with a person who lived in the vicinity, to furnish two hundred thousand brick, at the light-house site, for $25 per thousand, about a third the cost for transportation alone from San Francisco. Since no roads led to the cape, the following cost saving decision, as recorded in the 1869 report of the Lighthouse Board to Congress, was made. Besides producing a good supply of lumber, the deforestation also eliminated any chance of a forest fire endangering the station and reportedly diminished the amount of fog in the area.Įarly view of Cape Blanco Lighthouse with Duplex. These chalky, white cliffs prompted early Spanish explorers to name this landmark, which is the most westerly point in Oregon, Cape Blanco or White Cape.īefore construction began on Cape Blanco Lighthouse, the site was covered with a dense spruce forest, but the trees had to be felled to prevent obstruction of the light. Cape Blanco juts out one-and-a-half miles into the Pacific Ocean from Oregon’s southern coast and terminates in a large headland with 200-foot cliffs along most of its perimeter.
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