Transcript
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000
Hi everyone, I'm Emily.
2
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:03,000
And I'm Vince.
3
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,000
And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown.
4
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:14,000
It's every time.
5
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,000
Vince is in charge of our button mashing today.
6
00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,000
Oh, I already messed it up.
7
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:23,000
Did you mark them?
8
00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:25,000
No, I meant to do the boo boo boo.
9
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:27,000
Oh, we have that?
10
00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:31,000
Alright, never mind.
11
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:32,000
We don't have the sound.
12
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:38,000
We need to add that one, because that's what I think of a lot whenever I'm trying to find certain sounds to play.
13
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:40,000
Kind of a goofy sound.
14
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:45,000
Okay, so I promised an American lighthouse and we're not doing that.
15
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:46,000
Just kidding.
16
00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,000
No.
17
00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:51,000
No.
18
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:52,000
We talked about it so much.
19
00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,000
No, we are doing an American lighthouse and this one comes from our listener, Ben.
20
00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:07,000
So, Ben, thank you for sending us an email with this lighthouse and also for being the first person to be brave enough to send us a voicemail over our new website.
21
00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:09,000
Shout out to Ben.
22
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:10,000
Thank you for doing that.
23
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000
On the website, what is...
24
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,000
Okay, so I looked at our website because I hadn't looked at it since we changed it.
25
00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:18,000
It's really good.
26
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,000
There's the review page, maybe smile.
27
00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,000
But what is the voicemail access?
28
00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:23,000
Because I did not see that.
29
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:25,000
Someone wants to leave a voicemail.
30
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:26,000
Let me look.
31
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:27,000
Like Ben did.
32
00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,000
You must have figured it out and I did not.
33
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,000
You know what's funny is that I haven't looked yet to figure it out, but Ben did.
34
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:39,000
Shout out again to Ben, teaching us how to use our own website.
35
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:40,000
I didn't realize that was...
36
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:41,000
Contact.
37
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:42,000
It's not on there.
38
00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:43,000
Yeah, the videos.
39
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:44,000
Leave a voicemail.
40
00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:45,000
I bet it's contact.
41
00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:47,000
Okay, so here's that.
42
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:48,000
Oh.
43
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:49,000
Oh, there you go.
44
00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:50,000
Okay, leave a voicemail.
45
00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:51,000
Okay, so you can just record.
46
00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:52,000
That's awesome.
47
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:53,000
That's awesome.
48
00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:55,000
Yeah, it just sends me an email and I can listen to it.
49
00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:56,000
We're going to get spam now.
50
00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:57,000
It's going to be great.
51
00:01:57,000 --> 00:01:59,000
I've already gotten a couple of spam emails.
52
00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:00,000
All right.
53
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,000
So avoid doing that, friends.
54
00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:06,000
Lighthouse friends.
55
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:11,000
Ben told us a very sweet story about how our podcast has impacted his life.
56
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,000
And I won't go into details about it because I didn't get permission to share the story,
57
00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:16,000
so I won't.
58
00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:20,000
But he did give us permission to share a story about the lighthouse that we're doing today.
59
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000
So I'll tag that on at the end of this episode.
60
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:23,000
Very cool.
61
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:24,000
Yeah.
62
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:25,000
So our history of Bowie is...
63
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:26,000
Hang on.
64
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:35,000
Vince and I are sharing screen again for our YouTube and it's more complicated than you
65
00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:37,000
would want it to be.
66
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:39,000
What am I doing?
67
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:44,000
We are doing the anatomy of a lighthouse for our history of Bowie today.
68
00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:53,000
I briefly mentioned some things on like our first and second episode, but didn't really
69
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:54,000
go into detail about each one.
70
00:02:54,000 --> 00:03:00,000
So I'm just going to go from top to bottom of a lighthouse and kind of describe the basic
71
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:01,000
parts.
72
00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:07,000
And of course, everything varies greatly between lighthouses because there's thousands of them.
73
00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:10,000
I love this diagram already.
74
00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,000
Yeah, I messed it up.
75
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:18,000
You can see there is like this white line that goes around the right side of it.
76
00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:24,000
I was trying to be fancy and then I accidentally cut out the lighthouse from the page and then
77
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:27,000
move it over a little bit and I didn't know how to undo it.
78
00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:28,000
Oh, well.
79
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:29,000
Looks cool.
80
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:30,000
Yeah, I just leave it on there.
81
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:36,000
So we're going to use Destruction Island Lighthouse as the example where that...
82
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:43,000
If you go to our YouTube where I have a diagram of this lighthouse marked up so you can see
83
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:45,000
what parts we're referring to.
84
00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:49,000
But that was just because they had a cool blueprint style cross section of the lighthouse.
85
00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:50,000
Schematics.
86
00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:51,000
I love schematics.
87
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:52,000
Love them.
88
00:03:52,000 --> 00:04:02,000
So starting from the top, every lighthouse tower has a lightning rod because they're
89
00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:07,000
usually pretty tall and there's a lot of metal on a lighthouse that you wouldn't want to
90
00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:08,000
get hit by lightning.
91
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:13,000
So they usually have a lightning rod to direct any lightning strikes directly to the ground
92
00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,000
instead of to the lighthouse.
93
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:21,000
And then below that we have a ventilator or a vent ball or a ball vent, which is just
94
00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:27,000
a metal ball that allows airflow to come out of the lantern room because it gets really
95
00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:28,000
hot in there.
96
00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:29,000
I never thought about that.
97
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,000
With the lantern, the light source is probably really hot.
98
00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:32,000
Yeah.
99
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,000
They don't have AC in a lighthouse, so it gets pretty toasty in there.
100
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:40,000
So they have a ventilator in there for that.
101
00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:46,000
Below that is the dome roof or a cupola, which is just the roof of the lighthouse.
102
00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:47,000
I feel like we talked about that before.
103
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:48,000
I think we did mention it.
104
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:49,000
The cupola.
105
00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:50,000
The cupola.
106
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,000
Someone's going to be like, it's a cupola.
107
00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:54,000
Yeah.
108
00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:55,000
Excuse you.
109
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,000
It's not a sandwich meat.
110
00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:00,000
This is the baloney.
111
00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:04,000
The lantern room is below that, arguably the most important part of a lighthouse.
112
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:06,000
It houses the beacon.
113
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:10,000
If you have any clockwork mechanism, most of it is going to be in the lantern room.
114
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,000
And I also put a line on there to show you the focal plane.
115
00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:20,000
And that's just the distance between the bullseye of the lens or the very center of the light
116
00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:22,000
beam down to the water level.
117
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:28,000
So it's not to the ground or to like, it's like some people say the focal plane is like
118
00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:30,000
the height of the lighthouse or whatever.
119
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,000
It's like focal plane is from the center of the beam to the water level.
120
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:35,000
I did not know focal plane was a distance.
121
00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:36,000
Like it's an optics thing.
122
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:38,000
I thought it was a line.
123
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:41,000
The focal plane, yeah, is a line.
124
00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,000
But the focal plane height is.
125
00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:44,000
Oh, okay.
126
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:45,000
Yeah.
127
00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:46,000
So you're right.
128
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:48,000
Didn't explain that very well.
129
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:49,000
I thought you did good.
130
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,000
No, it's a good that we asked.
131
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:57,000
Below that is the lantern gallery or also called widow's walk or parapet, which is just
132
00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:59,000
a balcony that goes around the lantern room.
133
00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:05,000
And that's so that the keeper can clean all the panes outside of the lighthouse room and
134
00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:07,000
do any maintenance or whatever.
135
00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:12,000
Below that is a watch room and sometimes doubles as a service room or there's a service room
136
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:13,000
below that.
137
00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:16,000
It just it varies between every lighthouse.
138
00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:21,000
But the watch room is where they can watch storms without having to go up into the lantern
139
00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:26,000
room because the lantern room doesn't have any protection from storms like water.
140
00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:29,000
You know, you can't see through a window when it's covered in water.
141
00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:30,000
There's no overhang or anything.
142
00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:31,000
Yeah.
143
00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:35,000
If you're in the watch room, you have a little bit more protection from water so you can
144
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:37,000
actually see what's going on outside of the lighthouse.
145
00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,000
But you're also close enough to the top of the lighthouse where you can actually accurately
146
00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,000
glean what the conditions are for your lens and everything.
147
00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:46,000
Yeah.
148
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,000
And that also has a balcony.
149
00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:52,000
It's called the main gallery or a catwalk, sometimes called a catwalk.
150
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:57,000
There's other definitions of catwalk to do with lighthouses, but it's mostly like.
151
00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:58,000
Yeah.
152
00:06:58,000 --> 00:06:59,000
OK.
153
00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:04,000
So the main gallery or catwalk is below the lantern gallery.
154
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:06,000
So is there always?
155
00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:07,000
It's probably a tough question.
156
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:09,000
Always is a strong word.
157
00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:13,000
Is there usually a lantern gallery and the main gallery separately?
158
00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:14,000
There is usually.
159
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:15,000
Yeah.
160
00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:16,000
There's sometimes where there's not.
161
00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:17,000
The lighthouse today has one.
162
00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:20,000
So if that varies as well.
163
00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,000
But mostly there's a main gallery and a lantern gallery.
164
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:25,000
Right.
165
00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:26,000
OK.
166
00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:27,000
Yeah.
167
00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:31,000
So then the watch room is also where keepers sometimes keep their logs.
168
00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:35,000
So instead of having to go all the way back down the lighthouse to, you know, if they're
169
00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,000
talking about storm conditions or something that's going on with the lens or like this
170
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,000
is what I'm doing right now, then they just go down to the watch room.
171
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:42,000
Yeah.
172
00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:47,000
Below that is the main tower of the lighthouse is just called the tower.
173
00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:53,000
And it varies so greatly that you can't really make any notes on it because like you could
174
00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:56,000
have like in this example has a spiral staircase.
175
00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:01,000
You could also have a ladder or you could be like you could have your counterweight
176
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:08,000
shaft or your counterweight in the middle of the lighthouse or in some cases like the
177
00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:13,000
Eddystone lighthouse, you have the keepers living in rooms that make up the tower of
178
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:14,000
the lighthouse.
179
00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:16,000
So it just.
180
00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:23,000
The tower is actually just very so much that you can count on there being windows and that's
181
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:24,000
about it.
182
00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:26,000
Windows and some stairs.
183
00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:27,000
Yeah.
184
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:28,000
Somewhere.
185
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:29,000
See what else?
186
00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:30,000
What else?
187
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:31,000
We're down to lintel.
188
00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:37,000
So the lintel is a beam above the doorway or it can be above a window or something.
189
00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:38,000
It's just like a support beam.
190
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:39,000
Yeah.
191
00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:44,000
And often that's where they have engraved the name of the lighthouse, the year that
192
00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,000
it was established and the engineer's name.
193
00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:50,000
And so that's just something I noted on there because it shows up in today's episode as
194
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:51,000
well.
195
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:55,000
And then we also often see a counterweight well.
196
00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:58,000
This is something I learned today when I was researching it.
197
00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:06,000
And obviously the counterweight that runs the clockwork mechanism that comes down, it's
198
00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,000
just dangling there by a chain.
199
00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:13,000
And so if it were to break and fall all the way from the top of the lighthouse, you'd
200
00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:18,000
have really bad damage to the foundation of your lighthouse, which is horrible news.
201
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:26,000
And so very smartly, they have put in a well that catches a weight if it were to break
202
00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:29,000
and fall instead of doing damage to the foundation.
203
00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:31,000
It lands on this.
204
00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:36,000
I didn't have time to look up what it's made of or what the shape is or anything, but
205
00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:41,000
basically it's just a countermeasure to this weight.
206
00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:43,000
Is there any...
207
00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:51,000
So the weight under normal operation, the weight is on a suspended chain and it falls
208
00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:55,000
slowly downwards and that movement...
209
00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:56,000
Rotates.
210
00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:59,000
Rotates the clockwork at a certain pace, which...
211
00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:00,000
All right.
212
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:05,000
So when the weight gets to the bottom, the counterweight, we'll say, does it go into
213
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:08,000
the well as far as like it's a clearance, like it needs to go that far?
214
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:09,000
I think I've seen...
215
00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:11,000
Or is it just for falling if it were to say that?
216
00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:12,000
It's not always.
217
00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:17,000
It's not like the length of the lighthouse is the length that it has to go before it's
218
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:19,000
rewound up to the lighthouse again.
219
00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:25,000
It's just sometimes it can be that length and it gets close but never touches the well.
220
00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,000
Because then it would stop.
221
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:28,000
Yeah.
222
00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:34,000
Like today's lighthouse, I think, only goes 60 feet before it has to be rewound.
223
00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:36,000
I didn't make a note of what the distance was, but I remember reading something like
224
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:38,000
that, like, oh, it wasn't the full length of the lighthouse.
225
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:39,000
Yeah.
226
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:42,000
Well, there was one lighthouse, I want to say...
227
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:44,000
I want to say it was Alcatraz.
228
00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,000
It was one of those lighthouses that had...
229
00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:52,000
They had dug a well in the island for the weight to be...
230
00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:53,000
Cradled?
231
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:57,000
Cradled in because the lighthouse lantern room was at the level of the island.
232
00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:59,000
It was at earth level, ground level.
233
00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:00,000
Oh.
234
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,000
And then when they put...
235
00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:06,000
They rebuilt the lighthouse for some reason and they put it on a pier over the water because
236
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:11,000
that way the weight could go down towards water level rather than digging in the earth.
237
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:13,000
Oh, interesting.
238
00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:18,000
So they still had room for the weight to fall under normal operation or failure.
239
00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:19,000
That's interesting.
240
00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:21,000
I don't think you mentioned that in the episode.
241
00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:22,000
I can't remember.
242
00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:24,000
I don't know if it was Alcatraz.
243
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:28,000
I was going to say it was East Brother, but that's not right because that was not my episode
244
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:32,000
and it wasn't the very tall island, East Brother.
245
00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:33,000
No.
246
00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:34,000
Okay.
247
00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:35,000
Well, thanks.
248
00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:37,000
The last note on the right, what does that say?
249
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:41,000
Sorry, my handwriting is awful so everyone can see it on the YouTube.
250
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:48,000
Also, the pen, the studio pen I was using in Procreate is not made for writing.
251
00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:52,000
It wants to smooth out any stroke you make.
252
00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,000
So it became very swoopy and flat and not very good.
253
00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:00,000
Anyway, the bottom is concrete foundation and sometimes...
254
00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:03,000
So the bottom of the lighthouse, there's all kinds of stuff you could do at the bottom
255
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:08,000
of a lighthouse, but once again, the lighthouse today, there's a reason I did this for the
256
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,000
history of Buoyas because there's so many mentions of little things.
257
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:13,000
I'm like, I should probably do anatomy of a lighthouse.
258
00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:19,000
But the bottom can have a buttress, which is like external support for the lighthouse.
259
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:25,000
So it's like a bulbous bottom, sometimes shaped like a donut or it's tapered or something.
260
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,000
You can also have a...
261
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:32,000
The bottom of the lighthouse can be on a caisson or like a crib like we talked about on
262
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:34,000
island lighthouses, they have cribs.
263
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:40,000
It can also be a workspace, like a room that is just the bottom of the lighthouse.
264
00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,000
The entryway.
265
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,000
Berries, berries, berries.
266
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:46,000
What was the...
267
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:48,000
I'm thinking of Hatteras, right?
268
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:50,000
Oh, yeah.
269
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,000
The base of it we saw was the grid.
270
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,000
Yeah, fancy.
271
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:55,000
That was really cool.
272
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:57,000
It took a lot of concrete.
273
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:00,000
Well, that was Hatteras, for those who don't know, was moved.
274
00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:05,000
It was one of the lighthouses that was moved and there's a long recorded history we've talked about on that too.
275
00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:11,000
I feel like we should do another episode on that because we only did a 15 minute conversation on it because we were there.
276
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:18,000
Yeah, the Outer Banks, for those who haven't listened, has some awesome lighthouses, including Hatteras.
277
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:20,000
Is it Hatteras Island?
278
00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:22,000
Hatteras Island light?
279
00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:24,000
Hatteras Point?
280
00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:26,000
I don't actually know.
281
00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:28,000
I thought it was just Hatteras.
282
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:32,000
It's the tallest in the US and you would probably recognize it if you know any lighthouses.
283
00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:34,000
Cape Hatteras. Oh my gosh.
284
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:36,000
We are horrible.
285
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:38,000
Yeah, we should know. We were there.
286
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:40,000
We were there.
287
00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:42,000
Anyway.
288
00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:46,000
That is parts of Lighthouse, our lighthouse anatomy.
289
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:48,000
Good history, Booyah. Look at you.
290
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:50,000
Thank you.
291
00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:52,000
Destruction Island lighthouse.
292
00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:54,000
Sounds so cool.
293
00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,000
I know, we should really look at it.
294
00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:00,000
It's a clockwork history of Booyah.
295
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:04,000
So I can explain exactly what happens there.
296
00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:06,000
I shouldn't. That'll be next.
297
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:08,000
Mark my words, everyone.
298
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:14,000
Okay, so our lighthouse today, we're heading over to Northern California.
299
00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:18,000
So now we've done a couple of California lighthouses.
300
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:24,000
This lighthouse is unique in that it is tall and thin.
301
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:28,000
It doesn't have any taper to the walls. So it's just like a cylinder.
302
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:30,000
A pencil. Yes, a pencil.
303
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:38,000
And it's 115 feet tall, white with a black lantern room and a white solid balcony around the bottom.
304
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:40,000
So like the main gallery is just...
305
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:42,000
I'll show you a picture.
306
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:44,000
Wow. Oh, cool.
307
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,000
Yeah.
308
00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:48,000
Wow, it looks new.
309
00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,000
It's very clean. They do...
310
00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,000
They take really good care of it.
311
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:57,000
Because it's very often visited and a lot of people love this lighthouse.
312
00:14:57,000 --> 00:14:58,000
Great.
313
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:00,000
This is the lighthouse.
314
00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:04,000
I couldn't find if the lantern room right now is still original.
315
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:08,000
I want to say yes. At least the roof is still original.
316
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:12,000
Oh, and this is a good picture. You can see that vent ball up here.
317
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:14,000
Yeah. And the lightning rod.
318
00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:16,000
And our cupola.
319
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,000
Nice.
320
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:22,000
Yeah, this is a good example of for being able to see all the parts of a lighthouse that I was talking about.
321
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:27,000
Anyway, right now its flash pattern is one white flash every 15 seconds.
322
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:34,000
And that was different in history, which is another one of those cool things to go see at the lighthouse.
323
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:36,000
I'll talk about it later.
324
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:40,000
But in this picture, you can also see the foghorn, the old foghorn building.
325
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:42,000
Nice. It's big.
326
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:44,000
Yeah, I know it's fancy.
327
00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:46,000
So what lighthouse is this?
328
00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:49,000
I'm sorry. This is Point Arena Lighthouse.
329
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,000
You can see it there.
330
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:53,000
Point Arena Lighthouse.
331
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:55,000
Point Arena. Yeah. Northern California.
332
00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:58,000
How far north? Because we talk about San Francisco. Is that considered north?
333
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:00,000
It's north of LA.
334
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,000
San Francisco is probably middle of the California.
335
00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:05,000
Middle of the California.
336
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,000
It's a big state. I'm aware.
337
00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:12,000
I think this is not that far north. It's like kind of just like in the middle of the top half of California.
338
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:18,000
People do say though, they say Northern California. It's a whole different region.
339
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:21,000
Yeah. It's not just like the very tip-top.
340
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:31,000
In the 1850s and the 1860s, the redwood lumber shipments started to increase from Northern California to San Francisco.
341
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:39,000
And so they had to start putting lighthouses along this coastline so that people wouldn't crash with all of their redwood lumber.
342
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:47,000
So this point, Point Arena, is where the coast changes from like a northwest direction to a north direction.
343
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:53,000
So the coast turns. And so they needed to mark it directly with a lighthouse.
344
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:56,000
So they knew where the turning point of the coast is.
345
00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:03,000
So the point itself, I don't know if I got a picture of this. Kind of.
346
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,000
Oh, cool. That is not what I expected.
347
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:10,000
Yeah, it's from the picture. You can't tell that it's that the ground looks like this.
348
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:15,000
But the point itself is like a very narrow plateau.
349
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:19,000
The top of this is almost perfectly horizontal, which was good for building.
350
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:23,000
But then the edges are very vertical. They have cliff edges.
351
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:24,000
Yeah, very sheer.
352
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:32,000
So it's like a little plateau. It's about 200 to 300 feet wide and about a thousand feet long, depending on where you measure from.
353
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:41,000
And the rock at the end was not good for building. So they built about 400 feet back from the tip of the point.
354
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:44,000
I don't know how they discovered that the rock wasn't good.
355
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:49,000
I think that there was like a lot of cracks or something, you know, just over time.
356
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:55,000
In this image, you can see the foremost edge is actually falling off.
357
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:59,000
Oh, yeah. It started to shift down. It still has the topsoil on it.
358
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:03,000
The side around the foghorn building is pretty skinny.
359
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:05,000
I would guess it's been deteriorating.
360
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:06,000
I bet so.
361
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:08,000
But yeah, it's not a lot there.
362
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:11,000
It's not like rocky cliff. It's like sand rock.
363
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,000
That fence, if you look at the fence, it seems quite necessary.
364
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:15,000
Yeah.
365
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,000
Stay away from the edges.
366
00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:23,000
Yeah, they actually added that fence line after someone died falling off the rocks. I know it was like a construction worker.
367
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:25,000
He's like, oh, son of a bitch.
368
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,000
That sucks.
369
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:30,000
But there was so much picket fence. Look at all that fence.
370
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:32,000
Had to have been just so much money.
371
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:36,000
Let's just keep people from going too close to the edge.
372
00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:42,000
Anyway, so something interesting that I actually read up quite a bit on on this lighthouse is that
373
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:48,000
so this is not the original lighthouse, this like very tall and skinny.
374
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:56,000
The original was a very classic brick tapered tower light.
375
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:04,000
And what they did for building this lighthouse originally was that they made the bricks on site.
376
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:10,000
Because if you think about hauling hundreds of thousands of bricks, it would just be so expensive.
377
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:17,000
And so what they used to do is that they would set up kilns like a couple of miles away from their building site.
378
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:24,000
And this was true for construction anywhere like it for anything to make bricks for a construction site.
379
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:31,000
They would just go a couple of miles away and then they would dig up clay from it was like they would make a brick yard where they would dig up clay.
380
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:37,000
And then and they would mix it with other chemicals, whatever it is that makes clay good for bricks.
381
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:41,000
I don't know, like add something to glue. Yeah.
382
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,000
And they would place it into a mold and then pop it back out.
383
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:49,000
So it's just like a wooden box that you'd stuff clay into and then pop it out.
384
00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:54,000
And then they'd leave the brick to dry for a couple of weeks, just like under the sun.
385
00:19:54,000 --> 00:20:05,000
Spread them out. And then they would pile these dried bricks up into a kiln formation and then light a fire inside and then it would bake the bricks.
386
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:10,000
That's cool. Yeah. So they never like a kiln was made up of bricks that were being fired.
387
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:16,000
It wasn't like a thing that you put bricks into and take it out like that may have been true later.
388
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:24,000
But in like the mid eighteen hundreds, this is kind of what they did for construction was just bake bricks around a fire.
389
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,000
Makes sense. That's really cool. Yeah.
390
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:33,000
So this kiln method was used for five hundred thousand bricks for construction of this lighthouse.
391
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:41,000
And then they also shipped in one hundred and fourteen thousand higher quality bricks to be the outside of the lighthouse.
392
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:55,000
So they actually. Yeah, I read about that, too, is that they would just hand like sand the outside of the bricks to be more flat and then they would have a stamp in them for whatever.
393
00:20:55,000 --> 00:21:10,000
That's crazy. Yeah. So that's why a lot of times when you see older buildings, the bricks will have a stamp in them like just it's just the outside that has these fancy stamped like really nice bricks and the inside have just.
394
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:15,000
Yeah, wobbly bricks. The facade is what you see. Yeah.
395
00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:23,000
They finished building it in eighteen seventy and that was in April and it was first lit May 1st of eighteen seventy.
396
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:27,000
It was a hundred feet tall and had a first order.
397
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:30,000
Fray now lens.
398
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:35,000
Right now. Yeah. Sounds wrong for now for now.
399
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:38,000
Well, that was different than what I was saying.
400
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,000
It's not fray.
401
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:45,000
They also built a large brick, two and a half story keepers dwelling.
402
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,000
And that was to house four keepers and their families.
403
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:58,000
I was like, let me see if I have a I don't think I have a picture, but I'm going to find one actually for keepers right off the bat. Yeah.
404
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:02,000
One head keeper and three assistants. It's quite a staff.
405
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:07,000
There we go. Look at that house. That's an amazing house. I know.
406
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:11,000
They're like, we got extra room in the budget. So it's very this lighthouse.
407
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:18,000
Very classic, very clean and pretty. This is like visually one of my favorite lighthouses shapes.
408
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:23,000
And also, yeah, I like the ones that are like integral lighthouses that are just like a lighthouse on top of a house.
409
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:27,000
I like that. What do you have any idea of what year this is? Eighteen seventy.
410
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,000
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's so that's when it's marked.
411
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:35,000
So I want to but I feel like nobody took photos that early. I think they did. I think it was rare.
412
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:38,000
I don't think it was an easy thing to do. Yeah.
413
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,000
I think in the bottom of this picture, these are all flowers.
414
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:45,000
The lighthouse keepers daughters. I'll talk about this later.
415
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:51,000
They wrote a lot about that. The lighthouse is often surrounded by flowers like yellow and purple flowers.
416
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:57,000
And that's cool. Yeah. Anyway, beautiful colorized. I know.
417
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:03,000
We can just go back in time, experience it for ourselves. Oh, no.
418
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:06,000
It's our website, the Lighthouse Lowdown.
419
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:10,000
Just another reminder, go to the.
420
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:12,000
Just trying to get everything situated.
421
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,000
We haven't done sharing screen in a very long time.
422
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,000
Accidentally plugged our own website. I know.
423
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:21,000
Oops. What is this? This is our cat, Joey.
424
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:29,000
Oh, man. OK. So, yeah, I actually want the picture to be up again.
425
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:35,000
Oh, so I just wanted to point out how fantastical is this keepers dwelling.
426
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:43,000
It's if you think about having four families in there, I didn't look to see the average size of keepers family, but
427
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:50,000
it's a pretty good size for if you consider the lighthouse itself as 100 feet tall.
428
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,000
Oh, yeah. Ten stories. That's you know, it's pretty big.
429
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:58,000
You can see the windows are arranged in a way that makes me think there's a center wall.
430
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,000
So it's like a duplex. It was split up.
431
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,000
But I don't know if it was split up into four or if it was split up into two.
432
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:10,000
And then they shared like maybe one side shared a living room and a kitchen and another side shared a living room and a kitchen.
433
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,000
I don't know. I don't know. I think that would be a lot more.
434
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,000
It's at least split down the middle. Pretty sure.
435
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,000
Because otherwise the windows wouldn't make sense there. Right. Cool.
436
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,000
Yeah, it is a really nice house.
437
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:23,000
They also built a fog signal building in 1871.
438
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:25,000
So it took them a year to get around to it.
439
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:29,000
And it was a 12 inch steam whistle that was right on the tip of the point.
440
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:34,000
And so naturally after it was I think it was like 20 years or something.
441
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:38,000
It was just barely connected to the point.
442
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:42,000
It was just all of that had been eaten away and it was just fairly connected.
443
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:48,000
So they had to demo that and build a new one that was see.
444
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:51,000
I didn't put it, but they had to build a new one.
445
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:53,000
Not on the cliff anymore. No. Yeah.
446
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,000
Yeah, they brought it back back towards the lighthouse.
447
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:02,000
As you can guess by the location of our lighthouse in California,
448
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:07,000
earthquakes were a common problem. Yep. Yeah.
449
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:12,000
The San. 1904 or 1906. 1906.
450
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:17,000
Is it San Andreas? San Andreas fault? San Andreas. San Andreas.
451
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,000
It was just east of here.
452
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,000
And the first keeper's log note of an earthquake was in 1880.
453
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,000
There's another one in 1887 and 1898.
454
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,000
And the keeper said his room shivered, which I.
455
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,000
It's terrifying. Yes.
456
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,000
Like you don't think of shiver just like, oh, it trembled.
457
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:37,000
It's like shiver is a very, very fast, sharp movement.
458
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,000
Can you imagine your room moving like that?
459
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:43,000
Oh, it'd be terrifying.
460
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:48,000
In 18. OK, so then April 18th, 1906,
461
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,000
we have the earthquake that we've talked about a couple of times.
462
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,000
San Francisco plus all of California. Yeah.
463
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,000
All the way up to Alaska. Right. Yes. Yeah.
464
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,000
Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.
465
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,000
Insane. Awful. Really awful.
466
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:06,000
And so this was the keepers log that they wrote about it.
467
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,000
Quote, a heavy blow struck the tower from the south.
468
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,000
The blow came quick and heavy, accompanied by a heavy report.
469
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:21,000
The tower quivered for a few seconds, went far over to the north.
470
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:26,000
And then came back and then swung north again, repeating this several times.
471
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:30,000
Immediately after came rapid and violent vibrations, running the tower apart,
472
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,000
the sections grinding and grading upon each other while the lenses, reflectors,
473
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,000
et cetera, in the lantern room were shaken from their settings
474
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,000
and fell in a shower upon the tower floor.
475
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000
Like that is horrible. Sounds expensive.
476
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,000
And you think about this, he's not in his his keepers dwelling,
477
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:48,000
hanging out with his family.
478
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,000
He's in the fricking tower while this is going down.
479
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:58,000
So what can I do? I know he's got pieces of a lantern coming down all around.
480
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,000
And he's like, I wonder what you do.
481
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,000
Like, I would just be hugging the wall. Yeah.
482
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:13,000
So Suffice suffice to say that the tower took considerable damage from this earthquake.
483
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,000
They actually kept the light on and running until daybreak.
484
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:22,000
But then at that point, they saw that the earthquake had basically destroyed the lighthouse.
485
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,000
There was yeah, there's cracks all the way up the sides.
486
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:31,000
And so they did a they came over and did an inspection and realized they just had to tear it down.
487
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,000
There was like nothing else they could do to save it.
488
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,000
So, oh, another thing.
489
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:43,000
A black bear was spooked by this earthquake and went in to the tower, like running blindly,
490
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,000
like went into the tower. Maybe it was the keepers dwelling.
491
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:52,000
It didn't specify, but into the light station and they had to shoot it.
492
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,000
So I was like, what crazy?
493
00:27:54,000 --> 00:28:01,000
Why would a bear run from the mainland down this point into a building?
494
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,000
Looking for a cave, I guess. Maybe. I don't know.
495
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:06,000
Why did you have to shoot it?
496
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:11,000
Well, it's a bear running a rampant.
497
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:15,000
A bear inside the house. Yeah, difficult with your children.
498
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,000
It's hard to get the broom and shush it outside.
499
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:18,000
Like, no, no, no, this is not a cave.
500
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,000
Is there like news coverage on that? No.
501
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,000
Picture nothing. Just like, oh, yeah, we're having bear stew.
502
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,000
Oh, you know, as well.
503
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:28,000
I heard it's delicious.
504
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:33,000
They probably had bigger things to worry about being like, oh, do I have a job?
505
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,000
Oh, that's terrifying. So the tower was totaled, we'll say.
506
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,000
Yeah. And the house was as well.
507
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,000
Everything was destroyed.
508
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:44,000
Everything that couldn't be used to rebuild, like, you know, damaged brick and whatever,
509
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:50,000
they just pushed off the cliff edge into the ocean.
510
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,000
You know, world's largest dumpster. Is that how things used to be?
511
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:54,000
I think so. Yeah.
512
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,000
What else do you do with it? I guess.
513
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,000
The landfill's the same thing.
514
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:04,000
I mean, you could use it as rubble or something. Riprap.
515
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,000
That's true. That's true.
516
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:10,000
Probably actually helped with corrosion for the most miniscule.
517
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:11,000
The earth corrosion.
518
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,000
Yeah. Well, like the waves, you know, corroding the coast.
519
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,000
With the most miniscule way, you know, these couple of bricks aren't going to change anything.
520
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:19,000
Yeah, exactly.
521
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:24,000
After only a couple of months, they built temporary structures for the crew,
522
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,000
the construction crew and the keepers.
523
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:31,000
And a little wooden tower was built with the old lantern room placed on top.
524
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,000
So it was short, but it was the same dimensions.
525
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,000
This is like the top of the lighthouse.
526
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:41,000
And they had a temporary second order lens, which started up January 5th, 1907.
527
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:45,000
So it was a while. Six months? It was out of service?
528
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,000
April. Oh, it was April. Yeah.
529
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,000
April to January. Wow.
530
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:56,000
So at this point, they kind of got an idea of what earthquakes can do to lighthouses.
531
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:03,000
And so they planned on building the next lighthouse on this spot to withstand earthquakes,
532
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,000
which is a great idea, in my opinion.
533
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:08,000
So the lighthouse. Wow.
534
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,000
Wow.
535
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:12,000
Oh, my gosh.
536
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:18,000
The Lighthouse Board hired the Concrete Chimney Corporation of San Francisco,
537
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,000
and they make industrial chimneys or smokestacks,
538
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,000
which is why we have the shape of the lighthouse that we do today.
539
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:26,000
Interesting.
540
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,000
So the way that they constructed the tower to withstand earthquakes is that they
541
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:37,000
wove iron bars together and they surrounded it with wood, like a frame,
542
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,000
and then they filled that with concrete.
543
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,000
And that's what the lighthouse is made of.
544
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,000
Actually, it was the first lighthouse to ever be built this way.
545
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,000
And I think, I mean, obviously they've...
546
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:47,000
This one?
547
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:48,000
Yeah.
548
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,000
They've used this on other lighthouses after this, but it's the first one.
549
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:57,000
Yeah, the Alcatraz Island, the newer lighthouse that's there, is reinforced concrete.
550
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:58,000
No way.
551
00:30:58,000 --> 00:30:59,000
Yeah.
552
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,000
Because, I mean, it's like octagonal, I think, or pentagonal.
553
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:08,000
It's an edged shape, but they talked about because of the same earthquake
554
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:12,000
and the design that they needed for that.
555
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,000
Yeah. Cool.
556
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,000
And eventually, like while they were building this, as it got taller,
557
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:22,000
this was before like, I mean, this was still 1907.
558
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:30,000
And so to get concrete up high enough to pour in, they'd have a mule-powered elevator that pulled...
559
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:31,000
Poor animals.
560
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,000
I know.
561
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:37,000
Well, we just used them as tools before, at least we replaced them,
562
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,000
and now they can live happily ever after.
563
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:40,000
Yeah.
564
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,000
Have you seen how they pour concrete now, like on any job site?
565
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,000
No.
566
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:46,000
Well, there's several different aspects.
567
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:48,000
We should probably ask someone who actually knows.
568
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:54,000
But what I have seen is there's large pump trucks that have elevators, like a crane arm.
569
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:55,000
Yeah.
570
00:31:55,000 --> 00:32:01,000
And the pump truck has a, you can tell they're revving it up, a large, like diesel-powered engine.
571
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,000
It's like a computer trying to place sims.
572
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,000
Yeah, a computer trying to cool down.
573
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:11,000
And it pumps it up, and then it comes overhead, and there are men that are standing on the rebar
574
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:15,000
that they have all set up, and then it comes out like an elephant trunk, basically.
575
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,000
Just all this like spraying concrete.
576
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:18,000
Oh my gosh.
577
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:19,000
So they like...
578
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:20,000
Direct it.
579
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,000
Yeah, they direct the hose around, and then they have people like rake it flat.
580
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,000
At first, try to just set it up.
581
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:29,000
But that way they can get it all in one monolithic pour.
582
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,000
Monolithic.
583
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,000
Yeah.
584
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,000
I know what I'm talking about.
585
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:34,000
Big wink.
586
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,000
I know almost nothing.
587
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:39,000
So this is a rebar concrete tower, one of the first.
588
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,000
I thought smokestacks were bricks, so I was wrong.
589
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:43,000
Well...
590
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:44,000
Like the old ones.
591
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:45,000
They probably were.
592
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:46,000
They moved to concrete at some point.
593
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:51,000
Yeah, and then when concrete became a thing, they changed.
594
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,000
Especially in places where there are earthquakes.
595
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,000
Like brick would last anywhere else, it'd be fine.
596
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:04,000
But if you're, I mean, the lighthouse has proven that brick structures cave in the face of large earthquakes.
597
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:05,000
Yeah.
598
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:12,000
Something I mentioned before is the bottom of this lighthouse now has this donut-shaped buttress around the bottom, which is just like a support.
599
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:23,000
Especially because the lighthouse doesn't have tapered sides, which is normally how a tower supports itself is by being thicker on the bottom, thinner on the top in that tapered shape.
600
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:31,000
And now since it's straight up, they added this buttress to the bottom, which is actually also a circular-shaped workroom for the keepers.
601
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:32,000
The bottom?
602
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:33,000
Mm-hmm.
603
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:34,000
The base?
604
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:35,000
Yeah.
605
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:36,000
Sorry.
606
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:38,000
What do they do in the workroom?
607
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:43,000
It's like if you need to polish one of the lens pieces, if you had to take it out and replace it.
608
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:44,000
Yeah, the little shop area.
609
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:48,000
Yeah, it's just like little stuff for lighthouse keeping.
610
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:55,000
They also took the original spiral staircase from the old lighthouse and put it in here.
611
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:04,000
And since it's a different shape on the inside, and also this one's 115 feet tall, I feel like they had to have changed it somehow.
612
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:05,000
Yeah.
613
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:06,000
But.
614
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:07,000
Yeah.
615
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:08,000
That'd be interesting to see.
616
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:09,000
Yeah, I would like to go see.
617
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:14,000
It's probably a really expensive thing to buy would be a metal staircase.
618
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:15,000
Mm-hmm, true.
619
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:16,000
So if they could rework it.
620
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:17,000
It would be better for everyone.
621
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,000
Cut and weld what they have.
622
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:20,000
Yeah.
623
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:21,000
Yeah.
624
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:25,000
But that's how we got the lighthouse that we have today.
625
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,000
115 feet tall, mostly white with a black lantern room.
626
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:29,000
I think it's original.
627
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,000
I want to say that's an original lantern room.
628
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:32,000
It looks old.
629
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:33,000
Yeah.
630
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:34,000
In a good way, I guess.
631
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:35,000
It looks classic.
632
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,000
Yeah.
633
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,000
But the so this tower was built in 1907.
634
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:41,000
Yes.
635
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:42,000
Yeah.
636
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,000
1907 was when the temporary tower was built.
637
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:45,000
With the wood platform.
638
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:46,000
Yeah, the temporary tower.
639
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:47,000
And then they started building this one.
640
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:50,000
And that one was finished September 15th, 1908.
641
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:51,000
Wow.
642
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:52,000
That's pretty fast.
643
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:53,000
Yeah.
644
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:54,000
Yeah.
645
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:55,000
It's about a year.
646
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:56,000
It's still over a year.
647
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,000
It just I can't imagine building that with the technology available.
648
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:00,000
I know.
649
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:01,000
They were using mules to lift concrete.
650
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:02,000
Even today.
651
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:03,000
Yeah, but today.
652
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:04,000
Like.
653
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:05,000
Oh.
654
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,000
Let alone using mules to lift concrete.
655
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:08,000
Yeah.
656
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:09,000
It's just daunting.
657
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:10,000
Yeah.
658
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:14,000
So at this point, they had a double bullseye Fresnel lens.
659
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:15,000
Oh my gosh.
660
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:16,000
Fresnel.
661
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:17,000
Fresnel.
662
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:18,000
Oh my gosh.
663
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:19,000
Fresnel.
664
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,000
It's going to be a rough ride.
665
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:23,000
Fresnel.
666
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:24,000
Fresnel.
667
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,000
Fresnel lens on five gallons of mercury.
668
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:33,000
So we have another mercury rotating Fresnel lens.
669
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:38,000
A 160 pound suspended weight that rotated the clockwork mechanism.
670
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:43,000
And it was every 18 seconds it had one turn of the lens.
671
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:48,000
Which was extremely fast for normally they just had more bullseyes on the lens.
672
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,000
But this time it was just a double.
673
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:59,000
So I should do a history buoy on types of Fresnel lenses because I don't have a picture.
674
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:04,000
Oh, I do have a picture, but there's someone else in the picture that I'm going to talk about later.
675
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:05,000
So don't ask.
676
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:07,000
OK, we'll cover it later.
677
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,000
Oh my God.
678
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:13,000
Anyway, in the background of this picture, you can see the double.
679
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,000
It just means that two bullseyes.
680
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:21,000
It just means that two bullseye lenses smashed together very close.
681
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:29,000
So out at sea, you would see two flashes very, very close, but it would still be two distinct flashes and not just one big.
682
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:30,000
I've never seen that before.
683
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:31,000
Yeah.
684
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:36,000
And so you would see a double flash every every six seconds.
685
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:43,000
And so there were three sides to the Fresnel lens where double bullseye on each side.
686
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,000
18 seconds is a full rotation.
687
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:46,000
Yeah.
688
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:47,000
Wow.
689
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:48,000
Yep.
690
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:52,000
And it had the the clockwork mechanism had to be rewound every two hours.
691
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:53,000
Oh, no.
692
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,000
Just awful.
693
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,000
I'm sure that was nice and easy.
694
00:36:58,000 --> 00:36:59,000
Oh, yeah.
695
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:00,000
Probably just pushing a button, right?
696
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,000
Right.
697
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:02,000
Exactly.
698
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,000
You just look at it and it just happens.
699
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:15,000
So we had our lighthouse back in September 15th and after the tower, they focused on building the housing again and this time they build a separate bung.
700
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,000
They said bungalow for each family.
701
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,000
So there was four bungalows.
702
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:20,000
Very fancy.
703
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:21,000
Yeah.
704
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:22,000
Very California of them.
705
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:23,000
Mm hmm.
706
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:24,000
Yeah, exactly.
707
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:30,000
When the Coast Guard took over lighthouses in 1939, they decided to paint all concrete on the tower white.
708
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:33,000
So let me pull this picture back up.
709
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,000
Oh, it wasn't white before.
710
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:40,000
The main gallery used to be black and there was no particular reason for why they did that.
711
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:48,000
I think it was just less work because you have to repaint the lighthouse once a year or at least they used to paint it at least once a year.
712
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:57,000
And it would have been easier to just paint it all white instead of having to worry about, OK, now we tape off here, make it black.
713
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:05,000
In 1960, the bungalows were demoed and four single story like, is it barrack?
714
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:06,000
Yes.
715
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:15,000
Barracks style houses were built, but the tower was automated 17 years later in 1977, which is pretty late for being an automated lighthouse.
716
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:20,000
And the light characteristic was changed to what it is today, which is one flash, I think every 15 seconds.
717
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:21,000
Yeah.
718
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,000
In the 77.
719
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:23,000
Mm hmm.
720
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:25,000
So a light beacon was replaced.
721
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:32,000
Yeah, yeah, they took out the or they didn't they left the Fresnel lens up there, but they didn't use it anymore.
722
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,000
So after that, it's the story of all lighthouses ever.
723
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,000
It starts to become a little bit decrepit.
724
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:45,000
There's no love, no people, no nothing until a nonprofit takes over and brings life back into the lighthouse.
725
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,000
And that's exactly what happened here as well.
726
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:56,000
We had the Point Arena Lighthouse Keepers, which is the nonprofit group, obtained a 25 year lease of the lighthouse in 1984.
727
00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:00,000
And then when that ran out, they were granted ownership over the lighthouse.
728
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:01,000
That's great.
729
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,000
So is it privately owned technically?
730
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,000
Yes, I would I think privately owned by the nonprofit.
731
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:08,000
Yeah.
732
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:16,000
So right now, the Foxville building that you can see in this picture is a museum and that's where they moved the first order lens.
733
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:22,000
So you can see it here, which is part of the attraction of coming to see the lighthouse, as you can see a first order lens.
734
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,000
It's like nine feet tall, six feet wide.
735
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:27,000
It's just enormous.
736
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,000
I still have not seen a lens in person.
737
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:39,000
Everyone is insanity that I've been doing this podcast for a year and a half or something and have never climbed a lighthouse.
738
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,000
I've never climbed a lighthouse.
739
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,000
You've been to what? Six lighthouses?
740
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:47,000
Oh, I've been to like.
741
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:48,000
In person?
742
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:50,000
It's funny because some people go to hundreds of lighthouses.
743
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:51,000
Like.
744
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,000
OK, well most of the people we know have never been to a lighthouse.
745
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:54,000
That's true.
746
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,000
We are in no coast USA.
747
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,000
Anyway, back to Point Arena.
748
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:10,000
The four. OK, first of all, something I was going to mention before I move on is this this first order lens is appraised at three point five million dollars.
749
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:11,000
Oh my God.
750
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:12,000
Isn't that crazy?
751
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:13,000
I should look up.
752
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:14,000
That's insane.
753
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,000
It was in the tower until seventy seven.
754
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:18,000
Yes. Yeah.
755
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:23,000
Well, until seventy seven, they changed the optic and no longer use the lens.
756
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:30,000
But I think it wasn't until they remodeled the lighthouse, which was in like two thousand five or maybe two thousand.
757
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,000
When the lease ended was a six, I think.
758
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:35,000
The lease ended.
759
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,000
Right before two thousand.
760
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:42,000
And then they were granted ownership and then they needed grants and stuff to remodel the lighthouse.
761
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:46,000
But I don't know the exact year. I think it might have been like the 2010s sometime.
762
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:47,000
OK.
763
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:53,000
But that's when they moved the lens out of the lighthouse and into the foghorn room so that you could actually see it.
764
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:54,000
See it without going up.
765
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:55,000
Nowadays.
766
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:56,000
A lot of cash.
767
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:58,000
I know.
768
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:02,000
You can rent the keepers cottages to stay in.
769
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:03,000
Nice.
770
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:04,000
Yes.
771
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:10,000
And the lantern room is now, they say, an excellent observatory because it's just a bunch of empty space.
772
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:15,000
It's an empty room and you can also rent out the lantern room for proposals or weddings.
773
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:21,000
If you decided to elope, they have an elopement package and you can get married at the top of the lighthouse.
774
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,000
Well, I know it's pretty neat.
775
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,000
But you can also have full size weddings here.
776
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:26,000
You just can't.
777
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:27,000
It wouldn't be you to.
778
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,000
Yeah, exactly.
779
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,000
They could see you from the ground, though.
780
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:32,000
Yeah.
781
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,000
You could wave.
782
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,000
Next to the tower is the lintel.
783
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,000
Oh, I think you can see in this picture.
784
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:40,000
That's what I was talking about.
785
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:44,000
Keeper Owens found it in the surf when he was.
786
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:45,000
No way.
787
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:46,000
Yeah.
788
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:53,000
When he was keeper at this lighthouse, he found the lintel for the original lighthouse that they dumped off the cliff into the water.
789
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,000
And so now it's on display out there.
790
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:57,000
You can go take a look at it.
791
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:58,000
That is cool.
792
00:41:58,000 --> 00:41:59,000
I think I do have a picture of it.
793
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,000
Yeah.
794
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:01,000
Actually, that's a great point.
795
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,000
Like, where did they where did they dump all the stuff right there?
796
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:05,000
OK.
797
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:06,000
OK.
798
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:07,000
Probably still there.
799
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:08,000
Got it.
800
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:09,000
Yeah.
801
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,000
So speaking of Keeper Owens, this is someone that Ben mentioned when he told us the story
802
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,000
of seeing this lighthouse.
803
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:19,000
So William Owens, he went by Bill.
804
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,000
He was the last second keeper.
805
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:23,000
Sorry.
806
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:28,240
The last second assistant keeper of this lighthouse and the last first assistant keeper and the
807
00:42:28,240 --> 00:42:30,000
second to last head keeper.
808
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:34,000
So he was there for quite a few years in different positions.
809
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:36,000
And then they, you know, axed.
810
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:41,000
The story of every lighthouse acts one assistant acts in an assistant position.
811
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,000
And then all those left as a head keeper.
812
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:48,000
So his total service was from 1937 to 1952.
813
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:52,000
And there was a keeper after him until 1977.
814
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,000
But I didn't find anything on him.
815
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:58,000
I think he was just a normal lighthouse keeper.
816
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:03,000
Also, Keeper Owens was the last lighthouse keeper at another California lighthouse.
817
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:08,000
And something happened there to where it was like a big story or something.
818
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,000
You know, it was made some big story.
819
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,000
I didn't look into it because we're not looking at that lighthouse.
820
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,000
But if I ever do cover it, we'll come back to Keeper Owens.
821
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:16,000
Probably will.
822
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,000
There's a bunch of stories about Bill at this lighthouse.
823
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:22,000
He had six daughters, one of them born at this lighthouse.
824
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:28,000
The rest of them were at other lighthouses because he served at, I think, five different lighthouses.
825
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:32,000
They had to rescue their cow, Bessie, off of a cliff, like fell down.
826
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,000
Oh, my God.
827
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,000
Get the rope. We got to save Bessie.
828
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:42,000
Yeah. He also reported seeing a submarine during World War II and called and said there's a submarine.
829
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:47,000
And they were like, there's no submarines in these waters, so you should go back to sleep.
830
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:49,000
And it was a submarine.
831
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:56,000
And a ship got torpedoed because nobody listened to him saying, hey, there's a submarine.
832
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:57,000
That's crazy.
833
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:58,000
I know.
834
00:43:58,000 --> 00:43:59,000
Was it German or Japanese?
835
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,000
I don't know. I think it was Japanese.
836
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:03,000
I guess I don't.
837
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:04,000
That's madness.
838
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:16,000
But yeah, it is part of his job, especially during a time of war, to stand up there and keep an eye out for submarines and ships and suspicious activity.
839
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:22,000
And he points out a submarine and someone goes, no, that's not possible.
840
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,000
What are you doing?
841
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:25,000
Japan's like way far away, bro.
842
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:29,000
No, they're not even close to here. There'd be no submarines.
843
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:30,000
That is crazy.
844
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:31,000
Yeah. How could you possibly?
845
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,000
I didn't know that happened in World War II.
846
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:34,000
What?
847
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,000
That any subs were over here on our coast.
848
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:42,000
Yeah. The torpedoed a schooner, I think that was pronounced, called Amelia.
849
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:51,000
I don't have any other details about it, but yeah, it was shortly after that just up the coast from where he had spotted them at the lighthouse where you do that.
850
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:55,000
Maybe it was a whale holding torpedoes and just accidentally set one off.
851
00:44:55,000 --> 00:45:02,000
So unfortunate. Always listen to your lighthouse keepers during a time of war when they say that they see a submarine in the water.
852
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:07,000
Or Santa Claus.
853
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:17,000
So his kids wrote stories about growing up in the light station. And these were in the US LHS archives. They're really, really fun to read. I really enjoyed it.
854
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:24,000
It's just, you always talk about the lighthouse. We always talk about the lighthouse. And then we mention a keeper too.
855
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:39,000
But you can't go into full depth about their life. And I was telling Vince too that we should do like keeper spotlights where we just like cover the life of one of the keepers that did a bunch of stuff or went to a bunch of lighthouses.
856
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:51,000
But I always want to just go on and on and on about some keeper, especially like keeper Owens, that his kids all wrote stories. They all have really cool, interesting things.
857
00:45:51,000 --> 00:46:00,000
I love reading about it. So you guys should too. I'm going to put a link in the show notes so you can go to that. It says it's public. So you can, everyone should be able to access.
858
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:01,000
That's cool. Read about it.
859
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:10,000
There's also a book called The Last Lighthouse Keeper, The Season, Storms and Shipwrecks of California's Bill Owens by Stuart McDowell.
860
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:20,000
And these were based on days of interviews between Bill and his wife Isabella. I think it's either Isabelle. I think it's Isabelle.
861
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:29,000
In the 80s. So they were interviewed and the author used these to write the story of Bill's life.
862
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:43,000
Ben, our listener, he said that he was exploring this area with his dad in this last December and they got lost on a muddy back road and that they later found out that it was named, this back road was named after Owens.
863
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:54,000
But I couldn't find it because, you know, Google Maps is not going to have little back roads named. So I couldn't find it. But that was his story that he had to share.
864
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:55,000
Cool.
865
00:46:55,000 --> 00:47:05,000
So Ben, we hope you enjoyed listening about this lighthouse. He said it was his favorite and that, oh no, I'll post. He took a couple of pictures of the lighthouse while he was hiking around it.
866
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,000
And I forgot to download them so I could show them on here.
867
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,000
But can we just show them here? I'll insert them on YouTube.
868
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,000
Here, I'm going to look at a great picture.
869
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:15,000
Great photo.
870
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:22,000
Yeah. Really awesome. Oh, I want to go there so bad. Look how flat that land is.
871
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:23,000
That is, that's level. Yeah.
872
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:27,000
That's perfectly in line with the horizon. What am I seeing at the bottom of the image? Is that rock?
873
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,000
I think it's rock with water.
874
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:31,000
Looks interesting. That's a very pretty photo.
875
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:37,000
So he sent those in, said that we could use them. So I'll put those in our Instagram so everyone else could see them.
876
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,000
Man, that is flat.
877
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:46,000
I know. Isn't that crazy? They're probably like, oh, we are definitely putting a lighthouse out here. We don't have to blow up any rock.
878
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,000
So, you know, earlier the picture of the cat that I put up.
879
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,000
Yeah. What's going on with the cat with the mascara on?
880
00:47:52,000 --> 00:48:03,000
There are two guest relations managers at this lighthouse. One is Mina, which is the cat, and one is Tassie, which is a dog.
881
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:09,000
So if you go to this lighthouse, you can meet the guest relations managers.
882
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,000
I like that.
883
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,000
I got pictures of both. It's necessary that I show them.
884
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:22,000
Mina as in as a mean cat. Where is it? Nice cat. It looks kind of mean in the photo.
885
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,000
It's a cat. It doesn't have mean faces. Kind of discerning.
886
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:31,000
I knew you'd say something mean about the cat and then I'm going to pull up the picture of the dog and you're like, oh, so cute.
887
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:36,000
Yep. If anyone can tell, Vince is a dog guy, strictly with no leeway.
888
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:39,000
He's got a nice face, like the dark nose.
889
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:43,000
She's also the rodent control specialist.
890
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,000
She probably kills it out there. Yeah.
891
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:49,000
And there's a picture of her on their website carrying rats. So that's Mina.
892
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:56,000
And then we got Tassie. Oh, look at him.
893
00:48:56,000 --> 00:49:00,000
It's a great photo. Is it great? She is also a hard worker.
894
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:06,000
Yeah, I didn't think so. Looks a lot like the one we know. Beautiful flowers still around. Yep, I know. Awesome.
895
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:10,000
Looks like a great place to visit. Oh, I so badly want to go.
896
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:16,000
Oh, there's a picture of Bill Owens as well. Cool photo. The top of the lighthouse.
897
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:22,000
Looks like it belongs in a cocktail bar. Yeah, it looks like it belongs at Salty Dog Saloon. Awesome pipe.
898
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:28,000
Look at that thing. Also, this is dubbed the best place in the Northeast to whale watch. Cool.
899
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:31,000
They have gray whales, humpbacks and killer whales.
900
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:38,000
And they also have a wind and whale celebration where it's like the best time of year to watch to like watch whales.
901
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:44,000
They'll like come right up to the side of the lighthouse. And then they have big kites, you know, the ones that are like
902
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:50,000
open so you can make them into figures and like big kites with like a bunch of different connections.
903
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:56,000
It's like all kinds of stuff. But so they got a constant sea breeze going on. Definitely. Whale festival.
904
00:49:56,000 --> 00:50:01,000
But yeah, I'm going to post the link to the website for this lighthouse as well.
905
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:07,000
So if you wanted to rent a keepers dwelling, a keepers cottage to go stay in, you can.
906
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:10,000
I think it starts like two hundred dollars a night or something. So not bad at all.
907
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:14,000
Yeah. Do you have any map views of where this is at in California?
908
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:19,000
So it's north of San Francisco, 100 miles roughly. That's about right. That's awesome.
909
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:25,000
I think there were two other lighthouses built in the 1870s on this coast up here, I'm assuming also right here.
910
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:30,000
Yeah. That other you mentioned the land turns north. Yeah. Point area.
911
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:35,000
So it's basically out straight west of Sacramento, a little bit north Santa Rosa.
912
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,000
That is the point arena lighthouse. Awesome.
913
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:44,000
Google bringing it in with five stars, four point seven, one thousand one hundred and sixty ratings.
914
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:47,000
A lot of good reviews. Awesome. Well, thank you for your work today.
915
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:52,000
Oh, yeah, you bet. Finally getting back to American. You asked Vince.
916
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:57,000
You're the next episode. You're coming up. So are you doing an American lighthouse? Yes.
917
00:50:57,000 --> 00:51:06,000
Excellent. And these are so fun because Lighthouse friends dot com has information on every lighthouse in the U.S.
918
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:11,000
And it makes it very easy to research because they do really good work collecting information.
919
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:16,000
A lot of it's from USLHS archives. It's a great resource for us.
920
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:20,000
Makes it a lot easier to cover an episode, get a head start. Definitely.
921
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:30,000
And everyone, please send us voicemails or emails about lighthouses you want us to cover, because we love it so much and it's so much fun.
922
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:32,000
We just love to hear from our listeners.
923
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:37,000
And it's easy to talk about lighthouses that other people are interested in for sure.
924
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:43,000
And it's like if we do an episode for a listener, it's more fun than just doing it for ourselves.
925
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,000
Oh, yeah. If you're brave enough, send us a voicemail.
926
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:51,000
Tell us about your favorite lighthouse. Tell us what your favorite episode is. Talk about how your morning went.
927
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,000
It doesn't matter. Please tell us about your breakfast.
928
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:57,000
Yeah, that's at the lighthouse lowdown dot com.
929
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:01,000
You can also follow us on Instagram at the lighthouse lowdown.
930
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:06,000
And we're on LinkedIn. We're on YouTube. All of those links are available through our website as well.
931
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:11,000
The website's really the place to be talking about potentially doing some merchandise.
932
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:15,000
Yes. Future for giveaways and or sales to help support the show.
933
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:20,000
Yeah. So if you have any interest there, let us know. Send us a voicemail.
934
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:29,000
Send us a voicemail. We hope you enjoyed listening and we will catch you next time on the lighthouse lowdown.
935
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:46,000
It has to be a little early.