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Aug. 21, 2023

Episode 33 - Point Arena Lighthouse

Episode 33 - Point Arena Lighthouse
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The Lighthouse Lowdown

We are bringing you another listener lighthouse this Monday and are once again headed over to California to look at Point Arena Light! This tower had a drastic makeover to acclimate it to its environmental conditions, as well as the biggest keepers dwelling I'd ever seen! And did I mention you can get married in the lantern room?

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There you can send us voicemails and emails about lighthouses you'd like for us to cover!

References:

  1. https://pointarenalighthouse.com/
  2. https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=65
  3. https://www.construction-physics.com/p/bricks-and-the-industrial-revolution
  4. 18th- and Early 19th-Century Brickmaking at the John Jay Homestead: The Process, Products, and Craftsmen by Lois M. Feister and Joseph S. Sopko
  5. https://archives.uslhs.org/node/11280
  6. https://thewhaletrail.org/sites/point-arena-light-station/
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.