After the arrival of white settlers, Coos Bay soon became one of the more important harbors along the Oregon Coast. As the shipments of lumber and coal from the bay grew, so too did the need for a navigational aid to guide vessels to the bay.

Oregon's first lighthouse was built in 1855-1856 near the mouth of the Umpqua River, twenty-five miles north of Coos Bay. However, in 1861 the overflowing river undermined the brick tower, causing it to topple. By this time, the Coos Bay area had surpassed the Umpqua River region in commercial importance, and it was decided that the interests of commerce would be better served by a new light at Cape Arago, rather than reconstructing the light at Umpqua River. Funds were allocated accordingly, and November 1, 1866, the first Cape Arago Lighthouse was illuminated.

The octagonal, wrought iron tower was capped with a lantern room housing a fourth-order Fresnel lens and was supported by spindly metal legs. Located at the northern end of the island, the tower was linked via a wooden walkway to a one-and-a-half-story wooden keeper's dwelling, constructed near the southern end of the island.

Rowboats were initially used to access the island, until a low bridge to the island was constructed in 1876. However, high seas cut short the bridge's life after just two years, and the boats were a necessity once again.

In 1878, a lifesaving station was established on the island. Three years later, the keeper of the station, Thomas Brown, was returning to the island from Empire City on Coos Bay, when he was caught in a storm and blown northward. The lifesaving keeper was now ironically in need of his own station's service. After a three-day battle, Brown was finally able to land his craft roughly ninety miles north of his intended destination. The lifesaving station was moved to the mainland in 1891, where it would be more accessible.

Cape Arago Light Station Photograph courtesy Claude Duke

After the low bridge to the island was repeatedly washed away, bids were solicited in 1889 for the construction of a more robust high bridge, to link the island to the mainland. All of the submitted bids were deemed exorbitant, and a cable tramway was built instead in 1891. Two frame towers, one on the island and one on the mainland, supported a 400-foot long cable, and the ends of the cable were anchored in concrete. This new means of accessing the island also proved to be perilous. Just over a month before a high bridge was finally completed in July of 1898, keeper Thomas Wyman, his daughter, and two other individuals were being winched across the inlet in the cage suspended below the tramway's cable, when disaster struck. The cable snapped, plunging the passengers onto the rocky surf some sixty feet below. Wyman's legs were severely injured, and one of them was subsequently amputated.

In 1896, the Cape Arago Station received several improvements. The existing light tower was encased in bricks and covered with stucco. A brick fog building housing a Daboll trumpet was constructed adjacent to the tower, and a new duplex was built for the keepers.

When the fog signal had been in operation for just over ten years, erosion on the point endangered the lighthouse and fog building. A wood-frame fog signal building with an attached octagonal tower was built near the keeper's duplex. The light and fog signal began operation on July 1, 1909. The new tower was similar in appearance to the lighthouse that had been recently constructed at Mukilteo, Washington.

In 1934, the wooden lighthouse was moved a short distance to serve as the keeper's office, and Cape Arago's third lighthouse was constructed where the second lighthouse had stood. Perhaps seeking a more durable structure, the new lighthouse was constructed of concrete, using the plans from Washington's Point Robinson Lighthouse.

The historic photograph at right, likely taken between 1934 and 1937 and provided by Claude Duke, shows, from right to left, the 1896 keepers' duplex, the 1866 tower, the 1934 lighthouse, and what might be the 1908 lighthouse without its tower. C. Duke was stationed from 1945 to 1946 at the Cape Arago Lighthouse, where he worked with the radio station, picking up distress calls from ships at sea. This aerial shot of the station was taken by one of his buddies.

Fresnel lens used in Cape Arago Lighthouse

The only surviving structures on the island today are the third lighthouse and the high bridge constructed in 1889 to provide access to the island. The original lighthouse was blown up with dynamite, some time after the third lighthouse was completed. The keeper's duplex was razed in 1957, and the second lighthouse met the same fate in the 1960s. A nondescript, cinder block, single-story fourplex, which had been built on the mainland opposite the lighthouse, was home to Coast Guard personnel who cared for the lighthouse until it was automated in 1966. The Coast Guard removed the Fresnel lens from the tower in 1993, and placed it on display at Coast Guard Air Station North Bend. George Collins, a historian at the Yaquina Head and Yaquina Bay Lighthouses, pointed out that a plaque at the station indicates the lens was the one used in the 1866 tower, but since the lens was manufactured by Barbier, Benard, and Turenne, which wasn't formed until 1901, this couldn't be the case.

Knowing that many of their ancestors had lived and were buried there, the Coos Indians continued to have a strong connection to Chief Island and the nearby mainland, even after it had been reserved for nearly a century as a light station. Following the drowning of tribesman Henry M. Brainard near the lighthouse in 1948, his widow sought permission to place a marker on the station grounds. Only after securing the assistance of Senator Wayne Morse, was she successful in overcoming years of resistance to her proposal.

Twenty-five years after the placing of that marker in 1950, the Confederate Tribes, consisting of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indian Tribes, obtained an Indian Burial Ground Easement on the mainland opposite the present lighthouse. Today, several markers are found there. In partnership with the Coast Guard and Bureau of Land Management, the Confederate Tribes hope to establish a major interpretive center on the point. Such a center would provide visitors an opportunity to explore the rich history of this small parcel of the Oregon Coast.

In mid-October of 2005, a notice was sent out to mariners by the Coast Guard stating that the Cape Arago Lighthouse would be deactivated. Chief Dale Dempsy, who is in charge of the aids to navigation team in Charleston, OR, said "no comments to speak of" were received, so he turned off the light on January 1, 2006. Of course, others besides mariners are interested in keeping the light active, and the deactivation has sparked a debate that hopefully will lead not only to reactivating the light but also to making the lighthouse accessible to the public. In 2007, Senator Gordon Smith submitted a provision as part of the Coast Guard Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 that would transfer the Cape Arago Lighthouse to the Confederated tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians. This bill was not approved, but in 2008 Representative Peter DeFazio sponsored a bill covering just the transfer of Cape Arago, and this was passed by the House and Senate in September, and signed by President Bush on October 8, 2008. According to the legislation, the tribes must make the Light Station available to the general public for educational, park, recreational, cultural, or historic preservation purposes at times and under conditions determined to be reasonable by the Secretary of the Interior.

Photo Gallery: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

References

1. "Cape Arago Lighthouse," Stephen Beckham, The Keeper's Log, Fall 1993.
2. Umbrella Guide to Oregon Lighthouses, Sharlene and Ted Nelson, 1994.

You can hike through some rugged terrain to get a closer view, however, the bridge to the island is closed to the public as is the lighthouse.