First Admiralty Head Lighthouse Photograph courtesy University of Washington

Admiralty Head is an elevated area on the western edge of Whidbey Island with eighty-foot bluffs that drop into the inlet. The first Admiralty Lighthouse, also known as the Red Bluff Lighthouse, was built on the headland during the second half of 1860 and became operational on January 21, 1861. The lighthouse was a two-story wooden structure painted white with the light tower rising like a church steeple from one end of the pitched roof. The red lantern room contained a fourth-order Fresnel lens. It would be almost nineteen years before its companion light was established at Point Wilson across the bay.

During the Spanish-American War era at the end of the nineteenth century, the government acquired land near the lighthouse for the establishment of Fort Casey. It seems the best points for placing lights to guide friendly vessels into a passage are also the best points for placing forts to keep unfriendly vessels out of the passage. Lighthouses and defense works are close neighbors at several sites along the west coast, including Admiralty Head and Point Wilson in Washington, Point Bonita and Fort Point near San Francisco, and Point Loma in San Diego.

The wooden lighthouse stood on an ideal location for one of the fort's gun emplacements. A new lighthouse was therefore constructed just north of the fort, and the original lighthouse was moved away from the bluff where its rooms were used to house noncommissioned officers and, for a short time, a temporary medical clinic. In 1928, the original lighthouse was torn down and the lumber used to build a house on Whidbey Island.

The second lighthouse at Admiralty Head was built in a Spanish style and included a two-story dwelling that was linked to the base of a circular tower of roughly the same height, by a one-story foyer. Three bedrooms were located upstairs in the dwelling, while the kitchen, dining room, and a living room were downstairs. The lighthouse was activated on June 25, 1903.

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By the early 1920s, the bulk of marine traffic was powered by steam rather than wind, permitting the modern vessels to hug the western side of the inlet. The Admiralty Head Lighthouse was thus no longer of consequence, and the light was extinguished in 1922 after just nineteen years of service. In 1927, the lantern room was removed and placed atop the newly reconstructed tower of the New Dungeness Lighthouse.

The Admiralty Head Lighthouse was vacant until World War II, when Fort Casey was reactivated. The lighthouse was painted olive drab and was used as living quarters. Following the war, the lighthouse again stood empty for a time before the Island County Historical Society initiated a restoration effort. The lighthouse was painted, and a replacement lantern room was built for the tower using vertical astragals rather than the more complex diagonal ones found in the original.

Today the lighthouse is home to a gift shop and a museum, which contains a multi-bull's-eyed, fourth-order Fresnel lens used at both Patos Island Lighthouse and Alki Point Lighthouse. A fixed, fourth-order Fresnel lens, thought to have been used in the Admiralty Head Lighthouse is also on display. The old oil house still stands just east of the lighthouse.

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References

1. "Admiralty Head Lighthouse," Sharlene P. Nelson, The Keeper's Log, Winter 1992.
2. Lighthouses of the Pacific, Jim Gibbs, 1986.