Map of the mouth of the Columbia River here.
All during the 18th Century the great powers of Europe sought endlessly for The Northwest Passage, and/or to dominate the Pacific Rim. The Spanish held California, the Russians Alaska, and France and England, dominant in the east of North American, wanted in on the action.
Spanish explorers claimed to have found a great river on the northern coast of The New World, but did not enter the estuary. An English fur trader named Mears sailed along here in the late 1700s, but did not find such a river; he only saw what appeared to be a wide beach and sand bar, and named a nearby promontory "Cape Disappointment" in commemoration.
In 1792 American Captain Grey explored said shoalwaters more closely, and entered the river John Bull had concluded did not exist, claiming it for the USA and naming it for his ship, the Columbia Rediviva.
About ten years later a ragtag bunch of explorers came down the Columbia from the mouth of the Missouri river, spent a miserable week in this neighborhood doing a creditable imitation of drowned rats, eating tallow soup, and then crossed over to what was not yet the Oregon side to spend the winter hunting elk, boiling sea water for salt, and getting ready for the trek back.
The mouth of the Columbia is five miles wide. Mr. Mears' assessment was actually pretty accurate: The current is fast, the river is shallow draft, and the bars and shoals shift often. The area is known as The Graveyard Of The Pacific. A lighthouse was built on Cape Disappointment in 1856.
The "Cape D" light was not visible by ships approaching from the north, so a second light was built a couple miles north at North Head in 1898.
In the course of the lighthouse and rivermouth defense building projects, a pair of jettys were built, which narrowed the rivermouth to two miles; the restriction had the effect of increasing the current, and deepening the estuary. (Also 0f adding dozens of acres of "accreted"land to both the north and south shores.) The mouth of the Columbia remains one of the most treacherous bodies of water in the world, however, evidenced by the fact that the US Coast Guard's National Motor Lifeboat School is located at Cape Disappointment.
(I've known Airborne Rangers, Green Berets, Navy Seals, and Delta Force operators; Coast Guard Surfmen may not be combat troops, but certainly rank with any Special Operations troop in my book. A short trip to the Columbia River Maritime Museum should leave you feeling the same way.)
(By the way, as for that first photo in my earlier post Here in Long Beach..., it seems that Long Beach is, indeed, the Longest Beach In The World, for certain values of "longest"; that is, there are four or five longer, uninterrupted beaches out there, but at 28 miles, this is the longest driveable beach in the world. Oddly, all of these "longest" beaches seem to be unswimmable and unsurfable.)
Both the Cape Disappointment and North Head lights are automated now; they are both owned and operated by the US Coast Guard (formed by the merging of the Lifesaving Service, Revenue Cutter Service, and Lighthouse Establishment.) Originally the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse (and later the North Head Light) were furnished with standard, for the time, oil burning lights, with (then) state-of-the art fresnel lenses to enhance the brightness and range of the beam. The lights burned 5 gallons of oil in a night, and were only lit at dusk. The oil had to be carried up to the light daily; other day-time chores included cleaning and polishing the lens. The three keepers pulled rotating eight hour shifts, although I have not yet found any record of a "service standard" for ensuring the shifts rotated in an equitable fashion, i.e., was it usual for (say) Sunday's afternoon watch to be shorter, to allow for a weekly rotation, Days/Eves/Mids?
The lights now use electric lights, of course; in fact , they use LEDs, in an array which automatically changes bulbs when one burns out, thus reducing maintenance on the light itsef to about once in 90 days. Here's an example:
Note the burned out bulb; the next good LED rotates into place.
They still use a fresnel lens, although not as large a one as originally.
Both lighthouses are on Washington State Park lands, part of Cape Disappointment State Park; the North Head Light site includes the old lighthouse keeping crew quarters. The Head Keeper's house
and the First and Second Assistant Keepers' "duplex" house
--it was assumed that each of the three-man crew would be married--are all available for rent. (Which is mildly amusing, since the WA State Parks are leasing these buildings from the USCG.) There are also guided tours of the North Head Light itself on certain days of the week.
The isolated life of a lighthouse keeper is a cliche, probably somewhat undeservedly so in the case of lights operated by the US Lighthouse Service
since they made an effort to staff them more fully, and included family housing for the crews.
From the sounds of it, being married to a lighthouse keeper was a lot like being an Army wife, except no one ever suggested to Mrs. Drang that her kitchen was subject to an unannounced inspection! Yet, there are records of a lighthouse keeper gettuing a poor eval, because the inspectors showed up on laundry day, and the beds were not made...
(And there Mrs. Drang and I were glad not to be in on-post housing, and subject to a ticket for not mowing the lawn...)
The Cape Disappointment and North Head lights were out of town and up a hill, but not that far from town; presumably, Mrs. Lighthouse could get away for an afternoon if she wished. The docents who led the tour of the North Head light told us that there is only one recorded "unexplained death" which could have been suicide, by the wife of the head keeper, and there was enough evidence that she simply slipped at the cliffside and fell that that was accepted as the official reason.
Malicious tongues wagged then as now, of course...
The lights now use electric lights, of course; in fact , they use LEDs, in an array which automatically changes bulbs when one burns out, thus reducing maintenance on the light itsef to about once in 90 days. Here's an example:
Note the burned out bulb; the next good LED rotates into place.
They still use a fresnel lens, although not as large a one as originally.
Both lighthouses are on Washington State Park lands, part of Cape Disappointment State Park; the North Head Light site includes the old lighthouse keeping crew quarters. The Head Keeper's house
and the First and Second Assistant Keepers' "duplex" house
--it was assumed that each of the three-man crew would be married--are all available for rent. (Which is mildly amusing, since the WA State Parks are leasing these buildings from the USCG.) There are also guided tours of the North Head Light itself on certain days of the week.
The isolated life of a lighthouse keeper is a cliche, probably somewhat undeservedly so in the case of lights operated by the US Lighthouse Service
since they made an effort to staff them more fully, and included family housing for the crews.
From the sounds of it, being married to a lighthouse keeper was a lot like being an Army wife, except no one ever suggested to Mrs. Drang that her kitchen was subject to an unannounced inspection! Yet, there are records of a lighthouse keeper gettuing a poor eval, because the inspectors showed up on laundry day, and the beds were not made...
(And there Mrs. Drang and I were glad not to be in on-post housing, and subject to a ticket for not mowing the lawn...)
The Cape Disappointment and North Head lights were out of town and up a hill, but not that far from town; presumably, Mrs. Lighthouse could get away for an afternoon if she wished. The docents who led the tour of the North Head light told us that there is only one recorded "unexplained death" which could have been suicide, by the wife of the head keeper, and there was enough evidence that she simply slipped at the cliffside and fell that that was accepted as the official reason.
Malicious tongues wagged then as now, of course...
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