Yaquina Bay Park
Newport, Oregon Coast

10. Lighthouse and Tower

The lighthouse was quickly built, the tower and dwelling by Ben Simpson of Newport, Oregon, the lantern room by Joseph Bien of San Francisco. Its beacon, produced by a whale oil lamp within a fifth-order Fresnel lens, shown for the first time on November 3, 1871.

The house remained empty for fourteen years and fell into disrepair. Repairs were made when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used it for crew housing from 1888 to 1896, during the construction of the north jetty. Ten years later, in 1906, the U.S. Lifesaving Service quartered a crew in the house and constructed a lookout station nearby. It was used for this purpose by the U.S. Lifesaving Service and then the U.S. Coast Guard until 1933 when it was again abandoned.