Yaquina Bay Light: Three Years and Done

The little wooden lighthouse at the entrance to Yaquina Bay has the unusual distinction of being decommissioned after only three years of service. Construction started May first, eighteen seventy-one, and keeper Charles Peirce first shone its fifth-order Fresnel lens on November third of that year, guiding vessels into Newport's busy harbor.

The problem was that a much taller lighthouse was already being built three miles to the north at Yaquina Head. When that light was illuminated in eighteen seventy-three, the smaller bay light became redundant and was shut down on October first, eighteen seventy-four. It is today the only wooden lighthouse in Oregon and believed to be the oldest standing structure in Newport. After sitting dormant for over a century it was restored and reopened as a museum, and the light was reinstated as a privately maintained aid to navigation in December of nineteen ninety-six.