OC Waves Vol 3.6

YAQUINA HEAD
LIGHTHOUSE
PREPARES FOR SES-
QUICENTENNIAL
The stewards of Oregon’s tallest lighthouse are
sprucing up the popular landmark on Oregon’s
central coast for its 150th anniversary in 2023.
The 93-foot tall Yaquina Head Lighthouse was
completed in 1872, but the lamp on top wasn’t lit
until the following year because of a 19th-century
version of, get this, supply chain problems.
“It took a while to get all the parts to the
lens room here,” explained acting chief ranger,
Katherine Fuller.
Fuller said the sesquicentennial celebration will
build up to Aug. 20, the day in 1873 when the
Yaquina Head Lighthouse finally entered service.
Leading up to that date will be a variety of events
and ongoing restoration.
The lighthouse is a major attraction on the
Oregon coast by Newport. The landmark stands
at the end of a point that juts nearly a mile out
into the Pacific Ocean within the Bureau of
Land Management-administered Yaquina Head
Outstanding Natural Area. The 100-acre park’s
trails, sweeping views, bird life and visitor center
attract upwards of 500,000 people every year.
People in the Newport community immediately
noticed one change that has already happened.
It’s the switch out of the lighthouse beacon from
a 1,000-watt halogen bulb to a new energy-saving,
long-lasting LED stack.
“We got some complaints from neighbors for a
while,” Fuller said. “You can see in photos, this
(old one) was kind of a yellow light. You know
those LEDs are quite different. They come on
quickly, like ‘boom.’”
UNKNOWN WHEN VISITORS WILL
AGAIN BE ABLE TO CLIMB TO THE TOP
Until 2020, visitors could ascend to the top of
the lighthouse on guided tours. Then the historic
landmark closed during the pandemic. Limited
“quick look” tours resumed late last summer,
but they only go around the bottom floor for
now. BLM acting site manager Chris Papen said
restoration of public access to the top depends on
getting back to full staffing and a higher “comfort
level” with structure and COVID safety.
Papen said he couldn’t make promises about
when pre-pandemic tours will return, but said his
agency was building up to that goal. The BLM staff
on site is currently down about 20 to 30 percent
from full strength.
“The outside is looking great,” observed Fuller.
On the inside of the brick lighthouse, restoration
and maintenance continues room by room.
“There’s always more to do. If you’ve ever lived in
an old house, you know those repairs just don’t
stop.”
Overall, Papen said the historic lighthouse
seems to be structurally sound.
“I’m not quite 150, but I would tell you if I
looked in this great of shape at 150, I’d be pretty
happy with myself,” Papen quipped.
Other recent improvements you may notice
or appreciate since your last visit include a new
concrete patio and view deck on the seaward side
of the lighthouse base. It replaced a wooden deck
that was perpetually sprinkled with traffic cones to
mark weak spots.
During the pandemic shutdown, restorers
were able to tackle the lighthouse’s work room at
its base. They rebuilt a fireplace and reopened a
chimney. Papen said restoration of the oil room
across the hall ranks high on the to-do list next,
but that may be a project that lasts past the
sesquicentennial.
The Yaquina Head Lighthouse is the second
oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the
Oregon coast. Cape Blanco Lighthouse in Curry
County is Oregon’s oldest standing lighthouse.
It was first lit in 1870. Back then, a lighthouse
keeper had to light wicks in lard oil to fire up the
lantern. Electricity arrived at Yaquina Head in the
early 1930s.
HAUNTED BY A GHOST OR JUST TALL
TALES?
Lurking ghosts are a recurrent theme in the
Yaquina Head Lighthouse’s history. A lighthouse
enthusiast website maintained by Kraig Anderson
traced the first ghost story back to construction
of the double-walled brick tower in 1872. A
workman supposedly fell from scaffolding into the
hollow space between the walls and his body could
not be retrieved.
“A fine story, and perhaps an explanation for
the station’s purported ghost, but records show
no workers were killed during construction,”
Anderson wrote. “Strong winds did blow one
worker off the bluffs near the construction site,
but amazingly, his oilskins acted somewhat like a
parachute and he only received minor injuries.”
The ghost thread resurfaced many more times,
including in 1983 when the Yaquina Head
Lighthouse was used in the filming of “Hysterical,”
a comedic horror movie spoof in which the setting
is rechristened as Hellview, Oregon.
“The main character, Frederic Lansing (Bill
Hudson), a writer from New York City, tries to
escape to the remote lighthouse to write a great
novel, but his plans are interrupted by a resident
ghost,” Anderson noted about the movie’s plot.
“The two keeper’s dwellings appear in the movie,
but were torn down a year or so after the filming.”
The calendar of events and anniversary
commemorations for the lighthouse have not yet
been finalized, but will likely involve the BLM, the
city of Newport, the nonprofit Friends of Yaquina
Lighthouses and other partners.
The director of the Friends group, Amy
Anderson, said her organization is fundraising
to support restoration of the oil room in the
lighthouse as well as to bring back for 2023 some
successful interpretive programs from the past.
Those include an artist-in-residence program and
a summer student guide employment project.
BY TOM BANSE NORTHWEST NEWS NETWORK | PHOTOS BY JEREMY BURKE
OC WAVES • VOL 3.6
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