Pt. Pinos is the oldest light station on the California
coast
Tourist cars drive past this sturdy little light station, its
now-permanently lighted lens sending measured beacon warnings out
to sea, as it has for 150 years. Beyond, thundering waves roll in
from the open Pacific, breaking over rocky outcroppings to form
endlessly changing postcard-like scenes.
Begun in 1853-54, the 50,000-candle-power alternating beam lens
was installed early in 1854. The original 25 acres on which the
lighthouse sits once formed part of the Rancho Punta de los Pinos,
purchased in 1852 by the government from the Armenta family. An
additional 67 acres were added later.
Pt. Pinos is the oldest light station on the California coast
Tourist cars drive past this sturdy little light station, its now-permanently lighted lens sending measured beacon warnings out to sea, as it has for 150 years. Beyond, thundering waves roll in from the open Pacific, breaking over rocky outcroppings to form endlessly changing postcard-like scenes.
Begun in 1853-54, the 50,000-candle-power alternating beam lens was installed early in 1854. The original 25 acres on which the lighthouse sits once formed part of the Rancho Punta de los Piños, purchased in 1852 by the government from the Armenta family. An additional 67 acres were added later.
The Pt. Pinos Lighthouse, completed in 1855, is located at the far tip of Pacific Grove. Known as the oldest continuously functioning light station on the California coast, the historic facility was operated until recently by the U.S. Coast Guard before being turned over to the City of Pacific Grove.
The New England-style structure, with a beacon visible up to 17 miles at sea in clear weather, once had a separate, compressed air foghorn that sat in its own concrete building some distance away. Until it was declared surplus and shut down, the foghorn often shocked drivers passing by on foggy nights, unprepared for the searing blasts that burst forth at set intervals from the unobtrusive little structure.
Although the lighthouse now faces a rolling golf course with but a few decorative cypress in spots, the facility takes its name from its once-wooded surroundings. The location was first discovered and named by Sebastian de Vizcaino in 1602 for its point of former Monterey pines. Sailing up the California coast in December of that year, searching for possible Spanish port locations, the explorer sailed into the area that he named Monterey Bay.
As he passed the rugged point that forms the entrance to the expansive natural harbor, he named it Punta de Pinos, or Point of Pines. Historical happenings here had predated even Vizcaino. In 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo had passed by the craggy outcropping headed north, but he had named it Cape San Martin. A half century later, Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeño made a similar pass-by, briefly dubbing the area San Pedro Bay.
Europeans overlooked this stretch of the California coast until the fall of 1769, when Gaspar de Portola and his land party arrived to explore the area. Hard as they sought it, the men failed to recognize Vizcaino’s description of a pine-ringed bay he called “sheltered from all winds.”
But before the Spanish explorers left the area behind to continue north, they erected two crosses. One was placed near the mouth of the Carmel River. Then they came across the peninsula to Monterey, where another cross was set near the water at the foot of today’s Presidio property. Of its location, Padre Palou noted, “Blessed be God. The Cross was planted on a hill on the edge of the beach of a little bay which lies to the south of the Punta de Piños and at the foot of it a letter was buried.”
When the group returned from the south the following spring, and finally realized they had rediscovered Monterey Bay after all, Father Palou once again wrote of the event in his diary, referring to the “Punta de Pinos.”
A visit to Pt. Pinos Lighthouse today is much like a trip back to the 19th Century. The building itself and its third order 1853 Fresnel lens and light prisms inside the tower are all original. During the station’s earliest years, the first beacon light source came from burning whale oil, then lard oil followed in 1880 by kerosene. During those work-intensive decades, nothing could be left unattended. The lamps’ large wicks had to be trimmed, the light source refilled, and the beacon tower’s windows and light lenses cleaned, in around-the-clock shifts.
Oil for burning the lamps was delivered by force via a gravity-operated piston connected to a supply tank. A weight operated the timed shutter that regulated the light signal sent out to sea. After kerosene, the light system was replaced by an incandescent vapor lamp before its final refitting, in 1915, with electric light. The beam itself was automated in 1975 and since the advent of global positioning satellite navigation, both a radio signal and the nerve-jarring foghorn have been deactivated. On a tour today, visitors can see examples of the Fresnel lens and foghorn’s functioning systems on display in the lighthouse basement.
Inside the light station, where a succession of keepers both worked and lived, one can easily perceive how these stalwart workers spent their days. The building, restored to what it might have looked like at the end of the 19th Century, reflects a comfortable, if cramped space. Docents on duty explain the lives of former occupants, and what life was like when this was a remote area, surrounded not by today’s manicured municipal golf links, but more by acres of lonesome, stretching cow pasture framed by sandy beaches.
The restored living quarters are particularly interesting because they reflect how the house might have been kept by a very special light keeper, a woman named Emily Fish, who began her career in 1893 at age 50. She was not the first woman to operate the beacon but the space has been reassembled to reflect the time frame she lived there, from 1893 to 1914. A downstairs parlor and a bedroom directly above it are adorned with ladylike furnishings, which even include china and crystal table settings. Paintings hang on the walls and lace curtains adorn the windows. Emily Fish was a widow who, prior to her Pacific Grove job, had been a socialite in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as a world traveler. She was known for her hospitality, welcoming social visitors who came by her home for a visit while making the long stroll from Monterey.
The station’s first lighthouse keeper, Charles Layton, was quickly followed by the first woman lighthouse keeper, his widow Charlotte. Layton had been killed on posse duty for the local sheriff when he died while chasing a renegade outlaw. Charlotte, who was herself qualified to operate the light, was appointed to serve in his place. She kept the facility running from 1855 until 1860, when she married the new assistant lightkeeper, George Harris.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote of a visit to Pt. Piños during his brief stay in Monterey at the end of 1879. He’d taken a walk out to the newly established Pacific Grove Campgrounds, a Christian seaside resort where he wrote, “Thither, in the warm season, crowds come to enjoy a life of teetotalism, religion and flirtation.” At the time, Allen Luce was manning the station when Stevenson described his visit to the point. “Westward is Point Pinos, with lighthouse in a wilderness of sand, where you will find the lightkeeper playing the piano, making models and bows and arrows, studying dawn and sunrise in amateur oil-painting, and with a dozen other elegant pursuits and interests to surprise his brave, old-country rivals.” Stevenson wrote that the rocky Pacific Grove coastline reminded him of a dozen spots in his native Scotland.
Although no longer pine-strewn, the actual point for which the historic Pt. Pinos Lighthouse is named is easily visible from the lighthouse. Across the expansive frontage, visitors today can stand mesmerized by the incoming waves, rolling in and breaking on the same jutting, rocky point which was first seen and named by Vizcaino over 400 years ago.
GETTING THERE: To reach the Pt. Pinos Lighthouse from Monterey, follow Lighthouse Avenue all the way through downtown Pacific Grove. At the end of the avenue, turn right and drive a short distance on Asilomar Boulevard. Parking is available streetside directly across from the cemetery, or down a narrow road that leads to the front of the lighthouse property. For more information, call the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History at (831) 648-5716. Pt. Pinos Light Station is open for tours Thursdays through Mondays from 1-4 p.m. A nominal donation of $2 per adult and $1 per child is appreciated.
