Point Pinos Lighthouse

Point Pinos Lighthouse during restoration work in 2013

Point Pinos Lighthouse is the second oldest and also the longest continuously operating lighthouse on California's Pacific coast . The in Pacific Grove situated Schifffahrtszeichen was taken in February 1855 in operation and has since served as a navigational aid on the south and by his rock particularly dangerous entrance to the Monterey Bay . The lighthouse gained particular fame due to the fact that two of its keepers were women.

Location and importance for shipping

Rocky coast near Point Pinos Lighthouse

Point Pinos Lighthouse is located on the central coast of California, around 120 km south of San Francisco , on the Monterey peninsula . With the fall of the former Mexican territory from Alta California to the United States in 1848 and the California gold rush that began in the same year, securing shipping lines on the American Pacific coast became increasingly important. The rapid increase in shipping traffic, combined with the rocky coastline at the southern entrance to Monterey Bay, led the American government to decide to build a lighthouse at the tip of the Monterey peninsula. Point Pinos lighthouse is around 400 meters inland from the tip of the peninsula and is now framed by the Pacific Grove golf course .

Planning, construction and commissioning

Battery Point Lighthouse near Crescent City , in its architectural style, represents a different variant of the "New England plan" on which Point Pinos Lighthouse is based.

Three different locations were available for the construction of Point Pinos Light. The first measurements took place in 1851. The possible locations differed in their proximity to the coastline. A building site directly on the rocks in the water was probably discarded because the lighthouse would have been cut off from land at high tide and would also have been threatened by storms. A location in the dunes was ruled out due to the unfavorable soil conditions. Therefore, the choice finally fell on the current location, which is a little higher inland and had to be cleared of its tree vegetation before the construction of the lighthouse.

The construction of the lighthouse took place in 1853 and 1854. Point Pinos Lighthouse is built in the "New England plan", which is also used in other lighthouses on the American Pacific coast. In contrast to lighthouses, in which the guards' house is separated from the tower, the tower in this building plan protrudes from the center of the house. The facility comprises two floors, whereby the lantern room can be reached via a spiral staircase in the middle of the building. After the delivery of the second-order Fresnel lens originally intended for Point Pinos Lighthouse was delayed, a third-order lens was installed instead, which was originally intended for the Fort Point lighthouse .

The commissioning of Point Pinos Lighthouse took place on February 1, 1855. This makes Point Pinos the second oldest lighthouse in California after Alcatraz Island Light .

Women as lighthouse keepers at Point Pinos Lighthouse

View of the lighthouse keeper's bedroom at Point Pinos Lighthouse with furnishings and clothing belonging to Emily Fish .

Charlotte Layton was the first woman officially appointed as a lighthouse keeper by the United States Lighthouse Board . She came to Pacific Grove with her husband Charles in 1855, where he was appointed Point Pinos' first lighthouse keeper. After her husband had been shot in pursuit of a murderer just a few months after taking up his duties, she was appointed as his successor in the office of lighthouse keeper. Layton received an annual salary of $ 1,000 for their service, more than George Harris, who was Layton's assistant lighthouse keeper and earned $ 800. The fact that Layton was hired as a lighthouse keeper at all is probably due to the fact that men in those years of the Californian gold rush preferred to search for gold to another job and therefore new employment opportunities opened up for women. In 1860, Charlotte Layton and George Harris married. Although it was possible at the time that a man was subordinate to a woman, both swapped roles after the wedding and George assumed the position of head keeper from then on .

One of Charlotte Layton's successors was Emily Fish , who also served in the Point Pinos lighthouse. Fish took office in 1893, some 30 years after Layton. She is considered the "most famous lighthouse keeper in California" and retired in 1914 after more than twenty years of service. In the literature, Fish is also referred to as a “socialite keeper” (a mixture of “lady of society” and “lighthouse keeper” that is difficult to translate into German). This goes back to the fact that Fish, together with her Chinese servant Que, entertained numerous guests and furnished the lighthouse of Point Pinos - atypical for buildings of this kind - with valuable pieces of furniture, fine china, silver and leather-bound books.

literature

• Jerry McCaffery: Lighthouse Point Pinos, Pacific Grove, California , [Pacific Grove, CA] 2001, ISBN 096202624-7 .

Web links

Commons : Point Pinos Lighthouse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For more details on this, McCaffery, Lighthouse Point Pinos , p. 8.
2. ^ McCaffery, Lighthouse Point Pinos , p. 12.
3. ↑ On this and on the following McCaffery, Lighthouse Point Pinos , p. 14.
4. ↑ On this and on the following McCaffery, Lighthouse Point Pinos , p. 18.
5. ^ McCaffery, Lighthouse Point Pinos , p. 14.
6. ↑ On Charlotte Layton cf. Mary Louise Clifford / J. Candace Clifford, Women Who Kept the Lights. An Illustrated History of Female Lighthouse Keepers , Second Edition, Alexandria, VA 2000, pp. 73-75, Randy Leffingwell / Pamela Welty, Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast. Your Guide to the Lighthouses of California, Oregon and Washington , Minneapolis, MN 2000, p. 102, and McCaffery, Lighthouse Point Pinos , pp. 48-53.
7. ^ Clifford / Clifford: Women Who Kept the Lights , p. 74.
8. ^ Clifford / Clifford: Women Who Kept the Lights , p. 74.
9. ^ Clifford / Clifford: Women Who Kept the Lights , p. 74.
10. ↑ On Emily Fish cf. Clifford / Clifford, Women Who Kept the Lights , pp. 75–78, Leffingwell / Welty: Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast , 2000, pp. 104 and 108, and - most fully and reliably - McCaffery: Lighthouse Point Pinos , p. 67 -80.
11. ^ "California's most famous keeper", Leffingwell / Welty: Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast , 2000, p. 104.
12. ↑ The term was coined by Clifford Gallant, Emily Fish, the Socialite Keeper , in: The Keepers Log 1, 3 (1985).

Coordinates: 36 ° 38 ′ 0.6 ″  N , 121 ° 56 ′ 1.3 ″  W.