Cape Blanco Lighthouse
| Cape Blanco Lighthouse | ||
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| Place: |
 United States , Curry County
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| Location: | On a chap | |
| Geographical location: | 42 ° 50 '13.3 " N , 124 ° 33' 49.1" W | |
| Fire carrier height : | 14 m | |
| Fire height : | 75 m | |
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| Identifier : | Fl.W.20s | |
| Construction time: | 1870 | |
| Operating time: | since December 20, 1870 | |
| International ordinal number: | G 4432 | |
Cape Blanco Lighthouse is a lighthouse on Cape Blanco in the US state of Oregon . It is the oldest surviving lighthouse in the state.
location
Cape Blanco is the westernmost point of the state of Oregon and, next to Cape Alava in the state of Washington, one of the westernmost points of the Continental United States , apart from Alaska and Hawaii.
The cape in Curry County, 15 kilometers north of Port Orford , protrudes about 2 kilometers between the mouths of the Sixes River and Elk River , to the southwest is the Orford Reef with the Best Rock and Arch Rock and to the north of this is the Blanco Reef.
The lighthouse stands on a cape around 57 meters high .
Building history
In particular, Orford Reef and Blanco Reef, but also Cape Blanco itself, represented serious obstacles to coastal navigation in southern Oregon in the mid-19th century, which is why it was decided in the mid-1960s to build a lighthouse on Cape Blanco to build. In 1867, farmer John D. West sold the United States the land needed to build the lighthouse. In the next two years, the approximately 19 hectare site was cleared. The inaccessibility by land made it necessary to land all building materials from the sea. The bricks needed to build the foundation, the tower and the outbuildings were made on site, the rest of the building material and the facilities needed to operate the lighthouse were delivered by ship in May and June 1870. In May, part of the cargo was lost due to the stranding of the ship. The construction was under the supervision of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Stockton Williamson.
On December 20, 1870, the lighthouse at Cape Blanco began operating.
building
The original building has been preserved to this day, but the outbuildings erected in the summer and autumn of 1870, such as the caretaker's house, oil tank and water tower, have meanwhile been torn down. The whitewashed tower, built of bricks on a brick foundation, tapers towards the top and is around 18 meters (59 feet) high. The lantern and the roof are green.
The originally built -in first-order Fresnel lens was brought to Tongue Point on the Columbia River near Astoria in 1936 , but a weaker second-order Fresnel lens was installed, whose 20-second flashes of white light are visible about 23 nautical miles (43 kilometers). The lighthouse was automated in 1980.
Access
With the completion of the road connection in 1886, the lighthouse became a destination for excursions. More than 4,000 visitors are recorded in the guest book for the years 1896 to 1916. After years of closure, the site was reopened to the public on April 1, 1996. Since then, the building has been open to visitors between April and October; it can be reached from US Highway 101 via Cape Blanco Highway.
