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During the late 1850s and early 1860s, lighthouses were established along Washington's west coast and the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. However, there were still no lights in Puget Sound, the destination of many of the vessels entering the strait. In 1872, the following report accompanied a request for a lighthouse at Point No Point.

The rapidly increasing importance of the commerce of Puget Sound, which will be still augmented by the Northern Pacific Railroad, requires the construction of such aids to navigation as will more effectually open these waters to foreign as well as home trade.

The funds were granted, but Francis James, the owner of the point, was reluctant to sell the property. The Lighthouse Board might have expected a struggle over the property, as James had demonstrated his fighting nature while briefly serving as a keeper at Cape Flattery. There, a dispute with a fellow keeper had escalated into a gunfight. In April of 1879, James finally agreed to sell forty acres on the point for $1,000, and work quickly started on the lighthouse.

By the end of the year, the tower was close to completion, but the lens and glass panes for the lantern room had not arrived. The Lighthouse Service was determined to have the light exhibited in 1879, so John Maggs, the first keeper who also had a dental practice in Seattle, was ordered to hang a common kerosene lantern from the dome of the lantern room on New Years Eve. A fifth-order Fresnel lens arrived on January 10, and the glass planes followed on February 1. Shortly thereafter, the lighthouse was fully functional.

Mrs. Maggs also arrived at the station in February, and given her delicate condition a cow was ordered to supply milk for the expected baby. The bovine arrived by schooner, was lowered over the vessel's side using a sling, and then swam ashore. The first baby born at the station in July of 1880 was a girl.

Point No Point Lighthouse with fog bell

Maggs encountered difficulties with one an assistant keeper named Manning. One of many run-ins between the two keepers was recorded by Maggs in his logbook: "This a.m. Assistant Manning ran bell between 12 and 1 o'clock when there was a good horizon three miles off with not a particle of halo around the light and when I told him about it, that there was no need of running bell he said that I was a 'damned liar.' " Enraged at the accusations, which included keeping the light in a sloppy manner, Manning armed himself with a pistol and, accompanied by another man, took control of the tower. Inspector Reiter soon arrived to investigate the situation, and Manning and his family were required to pack up their belongings and leave with the inspector. Maggs recorded his feelings in his log on that long-awaited day when Maggs Departed. "Myself and family all feel great relief that the Mannings are all gone for we have suffered untold annoyances from the first day that they arrived here until today they left from here."

A few years after the establishment of the station, settlers started to occupy the high land northwest of the lighthouse. One of the first settlers was Hans Zachariasen, for whom Hansville is named. The lighthouse was tightly connected to the small community. From 1893 to 1914, the wife of one of the keepers served as the postmistress. Later, another keeper's wife ran a store in the town, and subsequently operated a weather reporting station out of the lighthouse.

In 1900, the fog bell was replaced by a Daboll trumpet housed in a newly constructed fog signal building. The light source was upgraded to a fourth-order Fresnel lens in 1915, which is still in use in the tower today. The new lens was struck by lightening in 1931, cracking one of the prisms.

The station was automated in 1977, but the keepers' dwelling still served as a home for Coast Guard personnel for several years. Kitsap County expressed interest in acquiring the lighthouse in 1992, but it wasn't until 1998 that the Coast Guard declared the property as surplus, and a long-term lease on the property was granted to the county. In a forward-looking move, the county has since purchased roughly 35 acres adjacent to the lighthouse, providing one-and-a-half miles of publicly accessible beach with views of Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, and Whidbey Island.

On June 16, 2006, the Fresnel lens stopped its years of countless rotations, having been replaced by a modern, plastic beacon mounted by the Coast Guard on the railing outside the lantern room. The U.S. Lighthouse Society relocated from a high-rise in San Francisco's financial-district to one side of the keepers' duplex in April of 2008. The other half of the duplex is available to the public as a vacation rental. The Lighthouse Society has an extensive research library and plans to open a mini-museum in their front room for tourists.

In 2009, the Point No Point Lighthouse, deemed excess by the Coast Guard, was offered at no cost to eligible entities, including federal, state, and local agencies, non-profit corporations, and educational organizations under the provisions of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. Located right next door, the U.S. Lighthouse Society would be an ideal candidate for assuming responsibility for the lighthouse.

References

1. Umbrella Guide to Washington Lighthouses, Sharlene and Ted Nelson, 1998.
2. Lighthouses of the Pacific, Jim Gibbs, 1986.
3. "Beach Land in Public Hands," The Sun, December 1999.

The grounds are open daily during daylight hours. Tours of the lighthouse are conducted by Friends of Point No Point on Saturdays and Sundays (April through September) from noon to 4 p.m. For more information or to arrange group tours, call (360) 337-5362.