Anacapa Lighthouse

The .5-mile, round trip hike provides views of the last permanent lighthouse built on the West Coast. The light was turned on in 1932, and remains on to this day, to warn vessels of Anacapa's rocky shores. At 11:00 pm on December 2, 1853, a frightening jolt woke the passengers aboard the side-wheel steamer Winfield Scott. Rushing on deck, they discovered that the ship had run aground in dense fog. Water poured into the ship's hold through two gaping holes in its wooden hull. Boarding the lifeboats, the passengers rowed to safety on Middle Anacapa Island, but the Winfield Scott was lost. Its remains lie submerged off the island's north shore. Despite the wrecking of the Winfield Scott and other ships off Anacapa's coast, a light was not placed on the island until 1912. Because of Anacapa's isolation, and the difficulties of building and supplying such a remote station, the first light was an unmanned, acetylene beacon placed atop a fifty-foot-tall metal tower. Responding to requests for better navigation aids along the Santa Barbara Channel, the Bureau of Lighthouses replaced the beacon with a lighthouse containing a 3rd-order Fresnel lens in 1932. The lens is now on display in the Anacapa Island Visitor Center. Buildings to support the lighthouse were constructed in the Spanish Revival style, characterized by tile roofs, stucco walls, and arched openings. The light station resembled a small town, with four residences flanking a main street that led to the powerhouse, oil house, general services building, fog signal building, lighthouse, water tank building, and other support structures. A series of ninety steps with two landings and a crane were built to transport people and gear from the landing cove to the top of the steep cliff. Lighthouse Timeline - On December 2, 1853, the side-wheel steamer Winfield Scott collided with Middle Anacapa Island. The wreck's notoriety led President Franklin Pierce to sign an executive order the following year, reserving Anacapa for lighthouse purposes. - The island's rugged terrain made the cost too high for immediate construction. Charles Hillinger, in the The California Islands, wrote that when members of the U. S. Coast Survey team visited Anacapa in 1854 they reported that it was an ideal but impossible site for a light station. Quoting a report, Hillinger wrote, "It is inconceivable for a lighthouse to be constructed on this mass of volcanic rock-perpendicular on every face, with an ascent inaccessible by any natural means . . . ." - In 1874, Congress funded a less expensive mainland station at Port Hueneme. - At the turn of the century, increased shipping traffic heightens the need for an Anacapa light. In 1911, Congress funded an automatic acetylene beacon mounted on a 50 foot metal tower at the eastern edge of Anacapa. In clear weather, the light could be seen from 20 miles in the distance. A whistling buoy was also anchored 5/8 of a mile offshore. - An estimated nine-tenths of all vessels trading up and