Point Piños Light
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Point Pinos Lighthouse in
Pacific Grove, California |
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 California
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| Location |
Monterey Bay Pacific Grove, California United States |
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| Coordinates | 36°38′00″N 121°56′02″W / 36.633389°N 121.933783°WCoordinates: 36°38′00″N 121°56′02″W / 36.633389°N 121.933783°W |
| Year first constructed | 1855 |
| Automated | 1975 |
| Foundation | stone basement |
| Construction | concrete tower |
| Tower shape | cylindrical tower with balcony and lantern rising at the centre of keeper's house |
| Markings / pattern | white tower, black lantern |
| Height | 43 feet (13 m) |
| Focal height | 89 feet (27 m) |
| Original lens | Third order Fresnel lens |
| Current lens | Third order Fresnel lens |
| Characteristic | Oc. W 4s. |
| Admiralty number | G3992 |
| ARLHS number | USA-634 |
| USCG number | 6-0290 |
| Managing agent |
Point Pinos Lighthouse |
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Point Pinos Lighthouse
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| Location | Asilomar Blvd. and Lighthouse Ave., Pacific Grove, California |
| Area | 1.3 acres (0.53 ha) |
| Architectural style | Cape Cod style lighthouse |
| NRHP reference # | 77000312 |
| Added to NRHP | July 14, 1977 |
| Heritage | place listed on the National Register of Historic Places 
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Point Pinos Lighthouse
Point Pinos Lighthouse was lit in 1855 to guide ships on the Pacific coast of California. It is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the West Coast of the United States and even the lens is original. Alcatraz Island Lighthouse preceded Point Pinos by 8 months, but was replaced in 1909 by the expanding military prison. It is still an active Coast Guard aid to navigation. Museum exhibits and other functions are operated by the city of Pacific Grove, Monterey County, California. The lighthouse is surrounded by the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Links.
The present light source, located 89 feet (27 m) above sea level, is a 1 kilowatt bulb, which produces a 50,000 candela beam visible under favorable conditions up to 15 nautical miles; 27 kilometres (17 mi) distant. Formerly, the light had a rigid schedule of being lit one hour prior to sunset, and extinguished one hour after sunrise. With automation completed in 1975, a small battery-operated back-up strobe light was installed outside the tower, and the main light was turned on permanently. The present signal has a simple 3-second on/1-second off signature. As a further navigational aid, a Class D radio beacon operated continuously which had a range of up to 20 miles (30 km). A foghorn was also located below the lighthouse closer to shore which could be turned on manually by the Coast Guard personnel when lack of visibility warranted its use. With the advent of global positioning satellite navigation in 1993, the radio beacon and foghorn were deactivated.
The light is a third-order Fresnel lens with lenses, prisms and mechanism manufactured in France in 1853. A larger, second-order light had been planned, but delay in shipment caused the present light, originally destined for the Fort Point Lighthouse in San Francisco, to be installed instead. The first light source was a whale oil lantern set inside the lens, whose tank the keeper had to climb the tower to fill several times a night. Whale oil was very expensive and was soon replaced by liquified lard oil which gave way to kerosene in 1880. At the turn of the century, an incandescent vapor lamp was used, followed by electric lights in 1919. From 1912 to 1940 a falling weight mechanism rotated a metal shutter around the light causing the beam to be cut off to seaward for 10 out of every 30 seconds. Thereafter a timed flasher provided the "on/off" characteristic.
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Wikipedia