The Heceta Head lens has 640, two-inch-thick prisms, arranged in eight bull’s-eye panels, and revolves to produce brilliant white flashes. lighthouses were produced in France, but besides Heceta Head, Chance Brothers lenses were also used at Point Cabrillo and Anacapa Island in California, and in Staten Island Lighthouse in New York. The tower’s first-order Fresnel lens was manufactured in Birmingham, England by Chance Brothers. The light is the most powerful on the Oregon coast and can be seen up to twenty-one miles out to sea. The masonry tower stands fifty-six feet tall and has a focal plane of 205 feet above sea level. Photograph courtesy Western Washington University The lens was landed at the station in October and set up over the next two months, but delays in receiving the lamps from the general lighthouse depot on Staten Island, New York postponed the first exhibition of the light until March 30, 1894. Due to a landslide at the site of the tower that required additional excavation, the lighthouse was not completed until the following August. Montgomery and Page, the contractors for the dwellings, barn, and oil houses, employed a force of sixty-four men and completed their work in January 1893. Laborers were paid $2 for a ten-hour workday, while the highest-paid carpenter received $4 a day. Lumber was procured from local mills, while masonry and cement came from San Francisco and the rock used in the base of the tower was quarried from the Clackamas River near Oregon City. Heceta Head Lighthouse was built using the architectural plans drawn up for Umpqua River, but due to the remoteness and ruggedness of Heceta Head, the station there would cost significantly more than the one at Umpqua River.Ĭonstruction of the lighthouse and other structures at Heceta Head began in 1892. New bids were opened on February 11, 1892, and a $20,470 contract was awarded to the lowest bidder later that month. The lowest received bids of $5,000 for the metalwork and $13,700 for the tower were accepted in November 1891, but as the lowest bidder for the dwellings was unable to secure a bondsman, this work had to be re-advertised. Separate contracts were awarded for erecting the tower, providing the tower’s metalwork, and constructing the keeper’s dwellings, barn, and oil houses. The barren landscape of the time can be seen in the early historic photographs on this page. A forest fire had swept through the area a few years earlier, wiping everything out. It’s hard to imagine, looking at the site today with its sweeping Northwest forests, that there was very little vegetation when the lighthouse was constructed. The site was acquired from a private party along with a right-of-way for constructing a seven-mile-long wagon road to connect the lighthouse with the nearest public highway. The Board estimated Heceta Head Lighthouse would cost $80,000, and on March 2, 1889, Congress appropriated this sum for purchasing the site and constructing the lighthouse. In 1888, the Lighthouse Board recommended that first-order lighthouses be constructed at Heceta Head and Umpqua River to light the dark gap that existed in the ninety miles of coastline between the lighthouses at Cape Arago and Yaquina Head. Heceta made it as far as the Columbia River before turning back due to concern for his scurvy-stricken sailors, and during his shortened journey, he made note of the prominent headland that now bears his name. In 1775, Don Bruno Heceta, sailing for the Royal Spanish Navy, set out from San Blas, Mexico with forty-five men and sufficient provisions for a year-long mission to reach the Arctic Circle. Perched on a breathtaking bluff 150 feet above the sea, Heceta Head Lighthouse is one of the most-visited lighthouses in the United States, drawing thousands of visitors each year to sense its history, feel its romantic aura, and enjoy its spectacular setting. Photograph courtesy Coast Guard Museum Northwest And it’s as if He personally selected the location for Heceta Head Lighthouse.Įarly view of Heceta Head with barren hills When God created the earth, He spent a little extra time on the Oregon Coast.

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