Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner From the top of the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class Clay Williams can scan the mouth of the Columbia River as the white and red light turns to send its signal out to mariners. This weekend, celebrations will mark the light's 150th anniversary. |
Cape Disappointment's lighthouse may soon roll out welcome mat
Thursday, October 12, 2006 7:23 AM PDT
By Michael Andersen
Printable version
E-mail this articleFor 150 years, the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse has helped keep ships clear of shoals and rocks at the mouth of the Columbia River, an area known as the Graveyard of the Pacific.
But for most of that time, it's been a shut-away Coast Guard property that is off limits to tourists.
That might change by this time next year.
The Guard is several months away from handing over the Pacific Northwest's oldest lighthouse to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, Fred Zderic, a real estate specialist for the federal government, said Wednesday.
After the transfer, park volunteers might help staff the lighthouse through long stretches of the year, said Jon Schmidt of the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment State Park.
"We would definitely want to increase the number of visits up here," Schmidt said.
He estimated that more than 35,000 people a year walk the trail to the beacon, less than a mile from the center on a basalt bluff overlooking the mouth of the Columbia River.
The Coast Guard only opens the lighthouse for two weekends a year, once on its birthday -- this Sunday -- and once in the summer. The lighthouse is open for tours this Sunday as part of the Long Beach Peninsula's annual Lighthouse Days festival.
A handover to the parks commission has been in the works since 1998, said Ken Graham, the commission's lands program coordinator.
Though the Guard still keeps lamps in lighthouses like Cape Disappointment, radar has made the lighthouses less important than they once were for keeping ships clear of shore. Since 2001, the Guard has been trying to unload lighthouses to anyone who'll buy them.
"The Coast Guard wants to get out of the lighthouse business," Graham said. "These few are within our parks, so they just make sense for us to pick up."
The parks commission also is taking over the lighthouses at North Head, located farther north in Cape Disappointment State Park, and at Point Wilson, near Port Townsend.
A new solar-powered lens, which requires little tending, would likely replace the lamp in the Cape Disappointment lighthouse, said Zderic.
The commission and its volunteers already keep the nearby North Head lighthouse open year-round, though it closes on weekdays during the winter.
The Coast Guard probably will give Dead Man's Cove, a beach that runs between the lighthouse and Lewis and Clark Interactive Center, to the parks commission.
Schmidt said the park would like to open the beach to tourists.
It would first need to repair an unstable stairway leading to the beach and find some way to comply with federal regulations about providing access for the disabled.
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