1865 Ediz Hook Lighthouse Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Appointed customs inspector in 1862, Smith proceeded to force the removal of the U.S. Customs House from Port Townsend, where it had been for nearly ten years, to Port Angeles. After the residents of Port Townsend resisted his plan, Smith sailed into Port Townsend Harbor aboard a ship, and with the guns pointed at the Customs House demanded the records. Though Port Angeles had a population of only ten, Smith, with the backing of President Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, was successful in establishing it as the port of entry.

Included in Smith's plan was the establishment of a formal lighthouse on Ediz Hook. An executive order signed by President Lincoln established the station in 1862, and the bonfire beacon was replaced by a lighthouse in 1865. The lighthouse, which resembled a country schoolhouse, was a two-story dwelling with a pitched roof and a small tower protruding from one end. A fixed, fifth-order Fresnel lens was first shown from the lantern room on April 2, 1865.

As customs inspector, Victor Smith was also in charge of appointing light keepers, and not surprisingly he appointed his own sister, Mary, as assistant keeper and his father, George K. Smith, as principal keeper. While returning from Washington D.C. in July of 1865, Victor died in a shipwreck off California. His father continued to serve as keeper until 1870, when Victor's sister Mary took over the responsibilities of head keeper, serving until 1874.

A fog bell was added to the station in 1885. A pyramid-shaped structure was built to house the clockwork mechanism for striking the bell, and the one-and-a-half-ton bell was suspended from support beams near the top of the structure. The bell sounded every fifteen seconds in foggy conditions.

1908 Ediz Hook Lighthouse Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

By the turn of the century, the combination dwelling/lighthouse was in need of repairs and mariners had repeatedly complained about the coverage of the fog bell. To solve both problems, a fog signal building with an attached octagonal tower was completed near the old lighthouse in 1908. The new lighthouse was similar to the Mukilteo lighthouse completed two years previously, and both were designed by Carl Leick.

The lantern room and lens were removed from the 1865 lighthouse and placed atop the new lighthouse, but the light source was changed from a coal oil lamp to an incandescent oil vapor (IOV) lamp. The tower was removed from the old lighthouse, and it was remodeled and continued to serve as a dwelling together with a newer structure built next to it.

The second Ediz Hook Lighthouse also had a lifetime of service spanning only about four decades. It was replaced in 1946 by a modern beacon positioned atop the control tower at Coast Guard Air Station Port Angeles, which had been established near the end of Ediz Hook. The 1908 lighthouse was sold and barged across the harbor to Port Angeles, where it is still used as a private residence.

References

1. Umbrella Guide to Washington Lighthouses, Sharlene and Ted Nelson, 1990.
2. Lighthouses of the Pacific, Jim Gibbs, 1986.