St. George Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society
Est. 1892
Welcome to the Preservation Society’s Website for the
St. George Reef Lighthouse
St. George Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society is a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to preserving the St. George Reef Lighthouse, a historic lighthouse 6-7 miles offshore from Crescent City, CA, near the Oregon border.
The Society leases the lighthouse from Del Norte County and works to keep it in public ownership, restore and protect the structure, and provide access to its history, both in person (via helicopter tours) and online.
A Century of Danger on the Dragon Rocks
St. George Reef sits about eight miles off Point St. George, a stretch of exposed rock that early sailors named “Dragon Rocks.” In 1792, Captain George Vancouver named the outcroppings Dragon Rocks, while the nearest point of land was dubbed Point St. George in hopes that the dragon might one day be slain. The dragon proved very real. On July 30, 1865, the steamer Brother Jonathan struck the reef and sank. Of the 244 people aboard, only nineteen managed to escape in a small craft.
That disaster finally pushed Congress to fund a lighthouse on the reef, though it took decades to happen. Construction ran from roughly 1881 to 1890, using granite blocks quarried near the Mad River and barged across Humboldt Bay to be shaped and fitted by hand. By the time it was finished in 1892 at a cost of $752,000, it was the most expensive lighthouse ever built in the US, more than double the original estimate. The first-order Fresnel lens didn’t arrive from France until after the tower was complete, so the light wasn’t officially lit until October 20, 1892.
In the News: LA Times Covers the Race to Save St. George Reef Lighthouse
The Los Angeles Times recently featured St. George Reef Lighthouse in a story about the urgent, expensive fight to preserve it. Restoring the lighthouse is expected to cost at least $10 million, and the site is a race against time as rising seas and stronger storms threaten the structure. Access today is only possible by helicopter, and only when winds cooperate and fog isn’t blocking the way.
The article also traces the lighthouse’s brutal origins, from the 1865 wreck of the Brother Jonathan to the grueling decade of construction that followed, and the dangerous, isolated decades keepers spent stationed there before automation made the tower obsolete. Of the 80 men who served at the station between 1891 and 1930, 36 resigned and 27 transferred to other posts, a testament to how brutal the conditions were.
Society president John Zimmerman is featured throughout the piece, speaking candidly about both the scale of the restoration challenge and the volunteers’ determination to see it through, in honor of the people who built the lighthouse under far harder conditions.
[Read the full article at the Los Angeles Times →]
Also, of interest, the National Register of Historic Places – See complete register here:
Gallery
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