Hi everybody, I'm Vince and I'm Emily and you're listening to the lighthouse lowdown.
It's a great foghorn. Love it.
Do you believe I made that intro music before I even started the podcast?
Before we even lighthouse lowdowners?
Yeah, I like to make things like if I go if I have an idea I go all in before it even proves to be like something that I'll continue, you know.
So I have a lot of hobbies that I've started, spent a bunch of money on and then abandoned promptly afterwards.
So only a couple hobbies that have made it.
Well, here we are. We've dumped a little bit of money into this and we're at the lighthouse lowdown.
Should I do this again?
We're getting started. This is our representative history buoy for today.
You're jumping in.
We're jumping.
Coast Guard.
This is one of the, I was going to say five, I'm not sure, one of the several buoys that is eventually going to be involved with the lighthouse we're talking about today.
Oh, but these don't look like buoys for people that aren't watching.
Big buoy.
Vince has pulled up a picture of a strange Coast Guard buoy.
It's a big modern buoy. I assume those are handrails on it.
Yeah, it looks like one of those, the merry-go-rounds that you would, that had a bunch of bars on it to hang onto.
Yep.
You ever fallen off one of those?
No, I haven't. Have I ever fallen off?
Yeah.
No. I've never fallen off.
Sorry. I just see videos of people who go really, really fast and then fly off.
I feel like that's something that like guys would have done when they were like hanging out with their bros.
We did. We never get that.
Okay.
We didn't have the internet when I was a kid. So not really.
You had to get the idea.
So we just had to like, you know, oh my gosh, it was so fun. So crazy.
There was no comparing. So this is a buoy, but the history buoy today is the word fetch.
As in that's so.
No, really? Are we actually?
Yeah, I'm defining fetch. Do you know what fetch means? I mean, there's several definitions.
I mean, yes.
I mean, one of them is nautical. We'll get to it.
So fetch is a verb. Number one, go for and then bring back for someone to fetch something like a dog would fetch.
Right.
But the nautical is a noun and it is the distance traveled by wind or waves across open water.
Okay.
And so I was like, so the distance of the water, like a linear distance.
So I looked further into it because I wanted to know.
So it's that as well as the distance the wind blows unobstructed over water, especially in the case where it's a factor affecting the buildup of waves.
Okay. So wind among tides and other factors builds up waves.
And eventually there's a point where at the wind's critical speed, matching the wave speed,
if the wind is no longer adding to the wave height, then it will white top and wash out.
So that's why sometimes you have different components of crazy storms building up.
Yeah.
So I thought that was kind of fun. It's a fetch. It's a distance where I'm going to say it's a distance where the wind contributes to the wave building.
Okay.
Because that's what does that have to do with our buoy?
Well, I just chose the buoy because it's a history buoy.
I see. Oh, sorry. We never show a buoy.
That's another thing we should do. Vince and I are working on a logo, a new logo for our podcast.
And maybe I should make a history buoy page for doing a history buoy. That's like a little buoy.
That'd be great. Some people will see that this episode we are announcing a giveaway.
Yes. Giveaway giveaway.
We're giving away a 20 ounce Stanley Tumbler with a custom engraved logo that no one has ever seen before.
Oh, yeah. The logo is ours. New logo.
New lighthouse lowdown logo. Yeah. 20 ounce.
It's light blue and it's going to have the lighthouse lowdown and our logo, our new logo on it.
It's like our first piece of merchandise.
First merch, lighthouse lowdown. First. What do they call that? Original print?
I don't know. Anyways, first release. If you're looking at the YouTube video right now, you should see the image on screen.
Wow. OK, that's what it looks like.
But yeah, enter. You have until December 25th, Christmas Day.
At that time, we'll be looking at whoever subscribes to our email notifications.
So to do that, you go to our website, which is the lighthouse lowdown dot com on the right hand side.
It asks you only two questions. One is what's your first name? You can really put whatever you want there.
The second is what is your email? You click go and then in your email, you'll have to see that email come in and click confirm.
That's it. That's all you got to do. So doing that just means that when we post a new episode on the podcast, you'll get an email telling you just a notification in your email that we posted a new episode.
So I think that's the only time you should get emails from us.
And when you subscribe for the first time for this giveaway, you'll get an email. Make sure you check your spam folder and confirm your email with the message that comes in, because then we'll be able to reach out to you if you do win the Stanley Cup and get your address so we can ship it out to you.
And this is only within the US. So sorry to our international listeners, but we got to keep it.
Yep. Yes, only anyone's described the email is eligible. Yes. So we'll be pulling a name from that list on the 25th and we'll let you know shortly afterwards. If you don't respond soon, we'll have to move on.
Right. But we appreciate everybody vigilant. So exciting giveaway giveaway giveaway.
So, oh, we are jumping right into our lighthouse. Do you know this looks this lighthouse. Do you recognize. No, I don't. Wait, Pacific Northwest.
Is this disappointment, father of the Northwest Lighthouses. This is Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.
So I wanted to talk about a shipwreck. And that was going to be our episode today. The ship called the Oriole. We're going to talk all about it. The Oriole has an interesting history we're going to cover. But it wrecked near Cape Disappointment.
And I was like, I'll just have a short episode this week. It's going to be great. It's just about the Oriole involved in a.
And then I got sucked in. Yeah, as ships do. Oh, an excellent.
Excellent. Near Cape Disappointment. So incredible photo. I go to our YouTube and see the photos that Vince is putting up. You really should.
This is a cool one because I like the water washing down. I'm going to show you several photos of this. I believe that's called Dead Man's Cove.
There's trails nearby. There's lots of visitors, centers and activities in this area. Astoria is nearby for those of you who are interested.
But I'm going to pull up a map because I like to do that. Yeah. Cape Disappointment Lighthouse is here. You'll also have another lighthouse up here called North Head, which we'll talk about.
It's famous as well. Cape Disappointment State Park. You zoom out.
This is the entrance to the Columbia River. I guess I should say the mouth of the Columbia River, which outflows into the Pacific Ocean.
Astoria is a town I mentioned. Cool town. I have been there.
You zoom out there. Seattle, Portland. So here we are.
It's right on the edge of Oregon. The top of Oregon. It is the border. This waterway right here. Oh, it's Washington. So technically it is in Washington.
We'll talk a lot about this, but I'm going to close the map for the moment. Okay. Yeah, I get distracted. This is another map.
Anytime you have a map up, I'm like, oh, look, a pub. You know, I always get distracted. Like what's in Astoria? Yeah.
Can you zoom in on that? Where are we going to go? Totally unrelated to the lighthouse. You mentioned Blackberry Pie.
All right. So the Columbia River I mentioned, I need to stress this because when you get to the mouth of the river, you have a very extreme weather area.
And the sandbar, which is at the mouth of the river, we're going to talk about that, comes from this effect.
So the Columbia River is 1200 miles and it goes way up into Canada there into the northern Rockies.
And then all of these tributaries, I think is the word, contribute to the outflow at the Columbia River. Oh, it goes out. Okay.
So it's flowing west into the ocean. I forget what that's called. Delta.
Delta is the outlet. So sediment. So it's you'll see. You'll see. But the Columbia River is a huge collection.
You know, Mount Rainier is in this area. The Rockies are here. All of the Pacific Northwest basically comes out of the Columbia River.
I vaguely feel like we've talked about Columbia River, this outlet being very dangerous.
Is it to recover the lighthouse on the other side of this mouth? We've talked about.
So to get back to the Oriole, and I might say this twice, the Oriole was a ship and it was commissioned by a company I'll quote later.
But the ship was responsible for building eight lighthouses on the West Coast and carrying the materials other than the brick and exterior rock stone for those lighthouses.
And it crashed at the Columbia River Bar, which is and it had supplies to build Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.
The Oriole just previously to that crash had delivered to the Alcatraz Island Lighthouse.
So it had come all the way around Cape Horn from the East Coast, the United States, with materials to build lighthouses.
And it did crash. So I think that was our connection, because when I covered Alcatraz Island Light, I heard about the Oriole in that we actually have it quoted in my own notes.
We talked about the Oriole and then contributing to this story as well.
I know I talked about the Columbia River and I think would you this doesn't have to be included, but can you just go back to the map and zoom in and see?
Oh, the Google map. Yeah, yes, I can. Here's our map.
All right, zoom out and go the other side. Down south. Yeah.
But baby, there's one in here. Lightship Columbia. Do we talk about that?
Oh, there's your buoy. It's terrible Tilly around here or something. Tillamook Rock is north.
Oh, that's what it was. Isn't it? No, it's south. Excuse me.
OK, so that's so we have this was the other we haven't aired Tillamook Rock right now.
Oh, it's a good episode. I'm excited. Tillamook Rock and Alan and Nathan have to do it.
Look at that picture that comes up. Tillamook Rock. Terrible Tilly is going to be an awesome episode.
This whole area is really cool.
You guys have heard all about it, us trying to cover Tillamook and failing because of technical difficulties.
But we had a winner for a raffle of being a guest on the podcast at a party.
And we're thinking that they're going to cover those winners are going to cover Tillamook Rock with us, of course.
Yes, it'll be a boys episode. Oh, my gosh. Emily be pouring drinks.
All right. Yes. So here we got keep disappointment.
I just wanted to show this and you can read if you like. Yeah, our water.
Yellowstone's the whole area is Pacific Northwest.
So powerful water. This is a zoom in again.
So we're looking here is the lighthouse. The sandbar is formed here and it's formed by twice a day.
The tides because of the moon, which we should probably cover the history, but oh, flow outward with an extra surge of flow.
And so the the tide changing creates a sandbar under water here.
That's about like three miles away from the coastline.
Interesting. Or maybe five miles. So about five miles out, we're going to actually be quoting myself later.
Five miles out is when ships start to navigate around the sandbar.
OK, using Cape Disappointment and other navigational beacons of history.
So the Cape Disappointments used more as like a long distance light than a like that.
It's not it's not as much navigating you into the it is.
So Astoria is here where the label Columbia River is at.
For those of you who aren't sitting on this. And so Astoria is a major trading port and it has been for a long time as well as today.
There's lots of business developed here.
So the ships will go to the south and line up and then come north to avoid the bar.
Line up with Cape Disappointment. Yes.
And the challenge is we'll talk about I think it's the Oriole that I quoted there.
They're talking about how they've waited eight days outside of the bar for good weather and the weather.
So there's lots of fog in the area. There's lots of wind changes as well as storms, as well as you can count on the tides.
And like ships will start to come in when the tide is favorable and the winds will change.
And if it's a sailing ship of old, then all of a sudden you had power and now you don't have power.
So you start sliding into the sandbar or sliding into the landmass.
So it's a difficult area to navigate and it just can't be avoided.
Lots of people have taken efforts to life save around this area, which is still continued today.
We're going to talk about that too. OK. Kind of neat.
Life saving stations. That's a history book that I want to do.
So don't go too far in depth. OK.
So I can't take you can't take multiple subjects in one podcast episode.
I'm telling you, this is just a big chunk. You're stealing everything.
I'm not stealing everything. Disappointment, disappointment, disappointment, disappointment.
That's the theme. So these are my photos from a trip I took in 2014.
Wow. With my dad, my brother and some family members.
This is the trip. It's a personal story, but I took a shot of wine.
Remember that? Oh, yeah. So it's not that good of a story.
But so I cannot tell you which bridge this is.
And I looked for a long time. This is not Cape Disappointment we're looking at.
But this is Pacific Northwest. We went to Astoria.
We did the whole. Oh, my gosh. What's the giant national park? Mount Hood.
Mount Rainier. Yeah, Mount Rainier.
The whole Olympic Peninsula. Olympic National Park. Oh, I thought there was a Rainier Rainier National Park.
I'm sorry. I have to go look at the map.
So I'm an idiot. Everyone that thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be like, yeah, bro.
Olympic National Park, Olympic National Forest. So I've been to Victoria. I've been to Port Angeles.
That's where my family was from. My dad's family, his grandparents, Squim's cool town.
For you lighthouse lovers that are also fans of Twilight. Forks is up here. Oh, my gosh. No way.
We went to Forks. Oh, those are my people.
So fantastic Blackberry pie in the summertime, by the way.
So I say all this. My dad drove us and I was a kid.
I was 18, so I didn't know where we were going. Yeah.
But this bridge, I took pictures here and the next slide of the bridge below that I wanted to express the fog that we saw the massive.
This is a very high bridge. And then this is like a whirlpool.
So this was the tide kind of slowly changing, I think. And my dad knows more about this.
I need to ask him where. Hey, where are we in this picture?
But this is a passage of fog over him standing on the bridge.
It was just really cool. It was a really neat experience. Like weather phenomena going crazy weather.
This is midsummer, like August, probably. So maybe late summer.
But crazy weather, very powerful water in the tides.
I had never experienced that being a Kansas boy, seeing the impact of rivers outflowing into the ocean.
So big impact. I just wanted to share these photos because I took them. I thought they were kind of neat.
I also took this picture, which one I keep throwing chips on the pile, but one more chip on the pile of this is near Cape Disappointment, like very nearby.
And this is, I want to say 1930s, the shipwrecked.
They stripped it of metal and then they left the frame. So the frame is still there for people to go see as a public park thing.
It's a very if you look up that beach, you'll see that thousands of pictures.
There's sunset Fort Stephen State Park. Boom. Oh, wow.
So again, things to see Lighthouse Tourism. I'm actually going to cover as its own thing coming up.
Yeah. Kind of how to. But yeah, if you're going to go see a town like Astoria, which the Goonies is based in Astoria as well.
You know, you're going to see stuff like that. So forty two thousand photos from the state park. Very highly rated.
So that's for the moment. I'm going to take a pause. But I wanted to emphasize the weather has caused quite a bit of drama.
And here we have a sketch. The sketch was created before the lighthouse was actually built.
So let's talk about it. All right.
We talked about the Columbia River Treacherous Bar.
There were two hundred and thirty four identified ships that stranded, sank or burned within the mouth of river between 1725 and 1961.
Nowadays, we're much better at navigating as well as life saving. So the kind of drop off was in the 1960s.
So this is this is a watercolor that was made from a sketch.
And what's written there, I couldn't really read it myself, but it's translated.
It's basically giving credit to who sketched it and then who did the watercolor.
And so. The disc on top of the discovery of the Cove first.
So we have Native Americans living in the area. Then there are Spanish settlers and then there are European other European shipgoers.
So 1792, a man named Robert Gray was the first European to successfully cross the bar.
I believe he was also the first to circumnavigate the globe from Europe.
And he named the river after his ship, which is the Columbia Redaviva.
So Columbia River, the north side, we have the Cape that is this keep disappointment first named by a Spanish man, Captain John Mears.
After saying, after trying to seek shelter from a turbulent sea, 1788 years wrote, quote, disappointment continued to accompany us.
We can safely exert that no river, San Roeg exists.
He was looking for the oh, my gosh, my mind's blanking.
The river that crossed the United States that doesn't exist.
The Northwest Passage. Never heard of that.
We talked about in school many years ago.
The Northwest Passage was a river that a lot of people were looking for.
They assumed it would cross the entire continent.
Oh, that's interesting. A river that would allow ships to pass all of the inland without going around the Horn of Africa, which is treacherous, scary, long way.
So this is the 1700s. He was looking for it.
And disappointment came from his quote.
So another prominent explorer, we talked about Robert Gray.
He named it. Sorry.
Yeah, just to clarify, they named it Cape Disappointment because they were looking for this river across the continent and they didn't find it.
So they named this. That's hilarious.
I was wondering why they decided to name it that.
I was like, there's got to be some good story behind it.
Yeah, that was the original seeking shelter, looking for the Northwest Passage and Columbia River is so large that it was actually.
So these explorers had difficulty even entering the river mouth to in time just moved slow back then.
If you enter, then you get upstream.
The Chinook Indians were in the area.
So there was Indian and fur trading going on.
But how far does this river go? It wasn't really a conversation.
The Indians probably had never traveled more than, you know, maybe 100 miles.
I don't know. I'm guessing.
But no one had gone all the way up to the Canadian Rockies on this river.
So it wasn't mapped yet.
So Robert Gray, who's a prominent name to this day in that area, discovered a lot.
He was another explorer. He named the Cape Cape Hancock in 1792.
But later he named it again to disappointment when he learned that it had already been named by Captain Mears.
Oh, he's like, agreed.
So the this is in the 1700s, the early navigation area.
A white flag was placed on top of the Cape that originally marked the river entrance.
And then three prominent spruce trees were planted and those were used to line up.
And so when you see them line up, they were was it range lights?
Yeah, a range lights before there were lights.
So they would line up with these three trees five miles offshore, head for the southerly tip of the Cape to navigate through the deepest part of the river.
So keep them away from the rock bar.
A lighthouse was officially recommended in 1848 as one of the first on the West Coast.
OK, so. Yes, yeah, later than you would anticipate.
But if it's the first over there, then unsettled crazy west.
1852, a contract was entered for its construction.
Originally, there was thirty one thousand dollars, but the amount was augmented by seventy five hundred dollars due to certain modifications.
OK, which we'll talk about. Oh, modifications.
OK, you have seen this design before.
Oh, a reuse, but not as it was built.
Oh, so this image, I find it really interesting.
Here's why a man named Hartman Bach back.
Oh, I see.
He was a lieutenant member of the Army topographical engineers.
He surveyed locations for the first eight light stations that were to be constructed on the West Coast.
It was a whole new deal. So he's the one to decide where they were going to be built.
Yep. Nice. He.
A lot of pressure. Later, he was promoted to major also military this whole time.
He was assigned to the Lighthouse Board as inspector of the fourth district, which is this area.
Yeah, 1855, he transferred to the 12th district, which is the whole West Coast as inspector and his office was in San Francisco.
So he made quite a name for himself in the lighthouse world, especially on the West Coast.
He thought it was important to chronicle the new stations and that he traveled to the sites.
He made his own measurements and and drawings.
So this is a realistic view, a sketch of the area before the lighthouse was there by by him.
Oh, yeah. I see his little name.
When he returned to San Francisco, a draftsman, who's the other man named Sandgren,
rendered the drawings into watercolors. The above is a disappointment.
Nice. That man Hartman Bach is also the great grandson of Benjamin Franklin.
What? Yeah, that's wild.
And himself, he was a part of the Lighthouse Board, the aboard from 1862 to 1870.
So he was one of the OGs, US, LHS.
In recommending a lighthouse and five buoys to the channel,
William MacArthur, the US Coast Guard, wrote, quote,
The greatly increasing commerce of Oregon demands that these improvements be made immediately.
Within the last 18 months, more vessels have crossed the Columbia River Bar than had crossed it, perhaps all the time past.
And during that time, no vessel has received the slightest injury and but few have met with much delay.
So I think he's saying that they can pass, but it's becoming a problem with traffic and also delay.
Like to be able to do good business, you need to have reliable timing.
So yeah, and people have to know what to expect to like to have to not have something consistent is problematic.
Right. You know, again, you'll get through sometime.
Yeah. So we've talked about them before, but there's contractors on the East Coast called Gibsons and Kelly of Baltimore, Maryland.
They're the lighthouse people of the time, the architects, engineers, builders.
So they were already starting their contract to begin and for the lighthouses out of the eight had already started construction.
Oh, wow. When they're busy, they had dispatched the Oriole to Cape Disappointment.
September 18th of 1853, after waiting offshore for eight days and conditions for conditions to improve, the Oriole attempted to cross the bar and wrecked slightly below the Cape.
No, thirty two man crew narrowly escaped with their lives, but both the vessel and all building supplies on board were lost.
Now, originally, I had more notes. They're like talking about, oh, it went up.
It went up on its own, its ends and everything was lost.
There's pictures of it. Yeah, I think they are paintings.
So so did that affect the building of Cape Disappointment at all?
Like two year delay, two years because you have to build.
This is very specialized equipment like the like the lantern room was one of those items, the staircases.
Oh, on the ship. I thought you said the like the I thought even the lens was on the ship.
I was like, no, but they would have shipped that separately, I assume from France.
They they weren't a frontal lens design at the time. Oh, that's right.
So they were designing at this time to use. This is really cool. I've never seen this before.
So on the bottom left screen, you're going to see what we've seen before.
So this is an automatic oil lamp, meaning that there's a pump you set up, the pump pumps oil and it burns.
You have a reflector here. The image above it.
Top left is a chandelier of those assemblies. So that was the original design for the lantern room at Cape Disappointment,
as well as many other lantern or lighthouses on the West Coast.
So during construction, it took so long, plus the two year delay that they decided, you know what?
This is outdated and this is an important endeavor.
We're going to go ahead and use the first order for your lens before it even lit before it even lit.
But they said they set up the reflectors before that.
They didn't have them active, but they were they were in place. Oh, boy.
Yeah, yeah. And so I want to read this paragraph.
Expensive. Again, it was delayed.
The construction was again delayed after these two years because it was discovered that the upper diameter of the tower
was not large enough to accommodate the lantern room for the new four ton first order.
Final lens manufactured in Paris by Louis Souter and Company.
The entire tower had to be dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt.
It was on accident that the diameter is too small or they didn't think about it.
They made a mistake. They were planning on having reflectors.
So it didn't matter, which, you know, I don't know the scale of this, but it's bound to be much smaller than a first order lens.
But we talked about the scale of those. Yeah, definitely.
And you could adjust the size of our like a chandelier of reflectors better than a frenel lens.
You have you can't I mean, they rebuilt the lighthouse rather than get a smaller.
So. Yep. So what order is in there or was in there first first order?
OK, well, later a fourth order and the first order lens was sent to North Head Lighthouse, which is that one just just up north.
Yeah. North Head. I haven't figured out why it's more prominent.
It was slightly newer and it became the new West Coast, the more ideal flight house.
Yeah. But Cape Disappointment was the original.
It's the matriarchy. So this drawing you have on the screen, that's not what Cape Disappointment looks like.
It's not. But that was the design.
So this company we just talked about, I got to go back.
Frank says, what are they?
They are the Gibson's and Kelly of Baltimore. They were contracted to draw one design that was going to be used on the East Coast.
And then again, on all of the West Coast, eight lighthouses at once.
They were planning on them all matching.
This is what was built at Alcatraz Island as the first lighthouse because it was built right before on the same contract.
But they couldn't build it here. And also one of the location of the camera, which one?
Because there wasn't enough landmass.
OK, yeah, because it's pretty pointy land that it's on.
If we'll go look at that, the land it's on, even in the preliminary sketch, doesn't have room for any other outbuildings.
He's like, get tower. Yeah, we got that. That's about it.
So this was varied upon for that reason. But this was the this was the engineer drawing.
And part of that makes me think as an engineer, that's why I mean, look at the window being adjacent to the roof like that.
It doesn't. That's not going to be built that way.
The chimneys are so close to the edge that might not be accurate.
You know, where is great at a very preliminary sketch.
I get carried away. But they're like lighthouse important.
They also assumed that in this drawing that the lighthouse was going to be on slanted ground and you'd have to accommodate the window to fit that.
Your window is going to be underground.
But the first time we looked at this, I didn't think about it.
Yeah. But mistakes were made.
I'll give them some grace. They were a little bit more engineering than me.
Oh, yeah. But where this is a story and a half dwelling split in half, you know, two different living quarters going on where this could not be erected, which is two places.
They instead did a standalone tower and separate housing kind of custom built, I will say, which probably didn't add to the cost effectiveness or speed.
So this is the OG. This is a 15 inch cannon, which we'll talk about.
The West Coast likes having really big lantern rooms compared to the size of their lighthouses or their towers.
Yeah. Huge lanterns like first sort of lens the size.
And it's on a cliff, as we saw. I think they said the range was 22 miles.
We're going to talk about dimensions here in a second. But there's there's three images.
This is the first one that I see. Like I smile as I'm like, this could be a rap album cover.
A guy with a cannon. The two guys like hanging out.
I'm going to go on the upper and I'll go on the gallery bottom.
Yeah. And then the three guys sitting casually next to a big bell.
You know, they sent like 20 minutes setting up for this photo.
That's hilarious. And you know, they probably just there for a long time.
Yeah. Fun thing for me. I like guns. They're interesting cannons.
These are elevation notches so they would lock a pin in one of these elevations to aim the gun.
Yeah. So if you're into cannons, you'll see that that's not super those cannon balls.
So I'm going to we're going to stay here. It's fine.
When Cape Disappointment was first lit, it was 1856 in October became the eighth active.
Remember October. We'll go back to that. The eighth active light on the West Coast in total.
Six of the original eight were built from the form of that tower we just saw.
And the two were integral story and a half. Same drawing, same lens.
The two that didn't work for were Cape Disappointment as shown.
And then another one, Farallon Island. I think that's near San Francisco.
Didn't look too deeply into it for the moment. They had it detached dwelling.
So yeah, a modified version quoted a considerable distance away, which will come into play.
What is this? This is a later design, which is why I should have come to it.
This is a fog bell. Right.
This is I think 1600 pounds. We'll talk all numbers, but it looks about right.
And oil house, but not these are not residences.
So the Brick Tower dimensions, 53 feet tall.
Focal plane is 220 feet above the sea. Wow. So pretty high. Very high up there.
Tapers from a diameter of 14 feet, four inches at its base to 10 foot six at the lantern room.
It was also fitted. This fog bell was 1600 pounds. It's a big bell. That is a big bell.
But it was useless. It's like human size. Why?
It was quoted many times as useless because and disappointing.
Because of the roar of the surf and the distance at which ships needed to hear that.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, because you said it was five miles out before people started to use it.
So no way. So in fog conditions, you'd be careful as you could. Yeah.
As a ship captain. But OK, the fog bell.
You need to not only hear it, but also be able to perceive a direction. Yeah.
There's a cliff below it. It's in the air, like 220 feet above you.
So the first keeper was there before the light was even lit. His name was John Boyd.
I've heard that name before. It mentioned that he was crippled, but it didn't. It never said how.
And many of the so I read a bunch of correspondence between John Boyd and our gentleman Bach,
who was promoted and he was John Boyd's supervisor in San Francisco. Yeah.
I read they corresponded all the time, which is great for history.
But and if he was an inspector, then he probably came by. He was very he seemed to be good at his job.
Yeah, very militant. Yeah. Like, for example, they talked about you shall whitewash the walls only so often as is required and not too often to deteriorate the situation, the materials, as well as spend too much money.
And he's like, I heard a report that upon inspection, it was of outstanding appearance.
And it was like, make sure you're budgeting well. That better be at budget. In the same letter, he said you.
You are not permitted in any capacity to change.
Paraphrasing any colors of paint anywhere on this entire grounds.
And he's like this white is too white. John Boyd was like, well, we painted something that was red to white.
That way it would cast the light better into the room we're working in.
Is that acceptable? He's like, you know, white is more light casting red. And it was red.
So anyways, lots of lots of back and forth. But John Boyd was a good old boy, somehow crippled.
And I just have to get it out of the way because it is a bunch. Yeah.
But he endured a lot of hardships at Cape Disappointment, fitting the name.
And he died on duty eventually in 1865, also October.
What from? Didn't say.
I don't know if it was an accident or if he was old. It sounded because he was crippled. Maybe he died of his disablement, whatever that might have been.
Kind of like old wound.
Something could have been a war wound. I mean, for example, these cannons were for the Civil War, which just blows my mind.
Yeah, they were. So I'm sure someone out there knows if you know.
Yeah. What took out Boyd died. Yeah.
If you can Google better than I can, please let me know. So he faced a lot of turmoil, both from the lighthouse, just everything that comes with managing that the sea, the weather conditions and then other keepers.
The first fall season. Remember, they just opened door in October. They just lit the light. Yeah.
This letter was in November. Oh, prompt.
The keepers found standing water. Excuse me. Not yet. They found standing watch in the tower unpleasant in the cool weather.
Oh, Boyd sent the following request to Hartman Bach, the lighthouse board superintendent for the West Coast and San Francisco.
Quote, as the winter advances, we find it very damp, cold and uncomfortable watching the light without a fire in the tower.
As a dwelling is situated so far from the tower, those having the watch of the light are obliged to sleep there.
Oh, we require a small stove very much and shall suffer very much without one.
Yeah. The long cold nights. Oh, my goodness. One that we could heat oil and water with be preferable.
Bach and Boyd continue correspondence. That's my that's my note because there's so many things that could have included between the two.
And there's a couple more. But he went on to argue box said, No, we can't do that.
If we do give you a stove, it'll be for a nearby building, not the tower. Another tower I've heard of.
Again, of course, paraphrasing. Yes. There's no way to install the flu for your stove.
Can't be inside at risk of oil fire. And if you flew it out through the external wall, you have to penetrate that wall.
And also the smoke from the stove can impede the light. We just can't have that.
You know, like, yeah, they gave a lot of thought to these things. Definitely. But the answer is basically no.
So cold, cold gentleman. So now fast forward, it's the Civil War.
A couple of years later, fortifications were added. There's a fort nearby. I don't remember what it was called, but this is still a military site at the time.
OK, so you were using it for like a defense purposes. Yeah.
They had a 15 inch gun, which is shown there, discharged in 1865.
I don't know if it was to fire on a ship or if it was a test fire or what, but the concussion broke 11 panes of glass in the tower's lantern room.
No. Keeper Boyd suggested that the lighthouse should be relocated because they were not going to give up the cannon's position on this cliff.
That's stupid. And it is so close to that lighthouse.
There's several of them. See if I have another picture.
I'm surprised that the force of that thing going off would shatter glass, like still a considerable distance away.
Look at this gun. This is another rap album picture. Yeah, ladies in full dress posing next to each other.
So another gun. I think that's a separate one that's nearby. But for now, we'll stay here.
So the answer was no. No changes will be made. Quote, all windows in the lighthouse buildings are to be opened and all precautions taken if possible to prevent injury to the lens lamp and other pieces of apparatus connected to the lighthouse.
Just survive the concussive force.
So here's some cannonballs. Nice. What is all this found concrete foundations stuff going on?
They talked a lot about concrete foundations in their letters. The cellars of all the buildings would fill with water.
They talked about different pumps they'd use and how in four hours they'd be full again.
So they cemented a lot of cellars and built up a lot of these areas as well.
And I think they had money to do that with the guns that came from the military.
It was kind of a, you know, we need the lighthouse to be working. And also we got to have a good spot for our cannons.
Look at the size of those things. Let's be so heavy. How do you even live in there?
I don't know. I have no idea. There was actually a video on how to fire these guns.
Oh, so you went deep, deep on time. I've spent a lot of time learning about keep disappointment.
How to load these. That's hilarious. Yeah, they had actually a video I watched on the guys.
They still have one of these guns on like the East Coast, one of the same Civil War era 15 inch cannons. They had a cool name.
I forgot what it was called. Some last name, but like Johnson gun or something.
But I wouldn't say that's cool name. Some last name Rodman. It was a rod gun. That is better. Yeah.
That is in Dennis Rodman. Anyways, getting all the rebounds in the video.
It's a Civil War reenactment where they load it and they turn their heads and they fire and the guy pulls out the plunger and they're going to reload it again.
Except that there's no fire. There's like a bell they chime. So it's like, and then the guys, you know, recover.
Now they reload it. That's so funny. Maybe smile. Well, the force to knock out panes of glass that far up.
Weren't these guys like just knocked back to the ground? Like, I don't get it.
Well, if you think about technology at that time, they were, I mean, cannon technology.
They were literally loading powder charges and throwing a ball at the enemy. A ball of metal like.
They didn't have rockets, you know, cartridges for firearms were different, primitive.
Like, so I think there's a lot of wasted energy in the firing of a cannonball at that time compared to what we have now, of course.
But I think the concussive force would just destroy everything. I mean, people would lose hearing.
Yeah, you could probably be killed by it if you're standing at or near the barrel.
So they load it and then try and get out of the area. Yeah.
I mean, still to today, like artillery crews, I don't know much. So someone please tell us more.
But the videos I've seen, they load and when they prepare to fire, everybody basically covers.
So they duck down and cover their ears and, you know, like one guy pulls a string.
Today, it's probably electronic, but a firing mechanism.
And I think that procedure has kind of been the same for a while.
So everyone around it's military trained, but the lighthouse keepers are not really.
So they're just next to this thing. Unless it's just by habit stance that they came from that background.
I'm not aware of any civil war activity on the West Coast with ships in this Columbia River.
I can't imagine. I don't know of it with my historical knowledge.
I do know there's a Japanese sub that surfaced in World War II near this area, which the lighthouse is still there.
It's still there today. So kind of neat.
So this picture you have up has a lot more buildings going on.
Every time you put you pull a picture, it's more buildings.
Yeah, this is like 1930, pretty sure. And so we have a lot a lot more going on.
The cannon is removed now because it was right here. The cannon balls were there.
So we're no longer at active war and the cannons are gone at this time.
Is there a stove in any of these buildings?
Also see that cable. So that's electricity or cell phone.
They installed a radio tower there. We'll talk about as well.
But is there any stove? Yeah, I don't.
Oh, yeah. Look at the chimney right there. Nice. In this building, which is I think like a watch, like a guard tower.
It's not it's not the residences because they still don't have room on this cliff for the house.
It is not the foghorn building. I believe that is because that might be like a steam.
Oh, you know what? You might have got me there. That might be what that is.
There wasn't a lot of tagging on this Cape Disappointment delivers.
One of the biggest annoyances, I just have to guess at some of this stuff.
One of the biggest annoyances was the dwelling.
So they talked about several feet of water in the cellar.
They couldn't store vegetables. It would freeze during the winter.
It would make everything damp.
Eventually, they eventually just concreted it.
So they filled the cellars, which is part of what we see here is more and more concrete everywhere.
At one time, Keeper Boyd, still on duty and the assistants didn't receive their salary for five quarters.
Yeah, they started to live off of credit. All of them.
Oh, no. How did that happen?
You know, it was some of the letters I read and they were cordial the whole time.
But John was writing like, hey, these guys are going to give up.
You know, there's an example I'm just about to cover where someone comes to make improvements to like a carpenter comes to the house to like extend the house, make an addition.
And he says, hey, can you guys dig post holes because the assistants are just assistants.
And John is he's crippled. So he points and tells me what to do.
He's very intelligent, but he's not a physical laborer.
And one of the guys does the work and the other guy is like, no, it's not my job.
He's like, what am I supposed to do with this military, you know, type of format we have and someone who just doesn't obey.
Yeah. Now you're not paying them. Like, what do I have left?
They were also doing other activities like when the tower was first built, they had a cart and several oxen that were used.
Bach was in the letter. He's like, yeah, just hold on to them.
They may be of use, but they've already paid for maybe we'll use them in another lighthouse in the future.
Maybe so the ox. Yeah.
Find find a place for the oxen. Oh, yeah.
In all the room that they have on this cape.
Yeah. So they did. John was industrious and he knew local people and he got some people to watch them and then eventually a letter from Bach said,
sell them at no less than one hundred dollars per head and sell the wagon for no less than one hundred and twenty five dollars.
Upon selling them, you'll go to the local office and wire the money directly to, you know, my account.
I'll take care of it. Yeah. So John was put through a lot.
But yeah, so in the letters, I got carried away. John said, hey, the if the government is like insolvent, like if there's a there's a shutdown at the time, you know, like let us know.
But I don't know how to manage the situation. Yeah.
And so eventually they were paid, but they were living on credit and they didn't have credit cards. Right.
So they were going to stores for rations and saying like, hey, beans and rice to survive and put it on my tab.
And the guy's like, all right, I know where you live. You know, yeah.
Eventually I'll get paid back. So that's outrageous that they just paper records pay for.
That's like over a year. Right. Yeah. How is that possible?
I have quarters. I'm surprised they were still like those those are respectable men that they would stay through all of that.
And Boyd, unfortunately, I told you he died on duty. He died before that housing addition was complete.
So that was kind of the last of his records was helping to manage that that effort.
So I wanted to show you why does it say North headlight?
North headlight. This is the transferred. So this is a different this is not this is Cape Disappointment.
I want to show you North headlight. They're so identical.
Yeah. But the dwelling, I think, is behind here. I would have never guessed that those were different lighthouses.
Yeah. So cute. Was North head not North head was not one of the eight original.
It was not. OK. But they use the same plans, obviously, as Cape Disappointment.
Yeah, they learned. I mean, financially alone, it makes sense. But look at the windows are slightly different.
Yeah, right. So but we'll talk about this photo is kind of fun.
I don't think I included it, but there was what they called a presidential party at the lighthouse.
OK. But it wasn't it wasn't like I think of like a planned party.
It was a visitation by local fine women and that were accompanied by gentlemen.
They came out to visit the lighthouse to see what's going on out here.
Oh, what their chaperones. They brought their own ship and they docked and then.
And they these are fine ladies dressed in fine clothes around, not just from town.
Yeah. I want to say this is 1880. That picture was taken.
It was before 1900. And so these hats in this fashion and like these are these are very wealthy people.
Yes. And they complemented the lighthouse and its appearance and upkeep and its social standing in the community.
And all that was recorded and blessed by all these rich people's presence.
It was recorded. And I just think this is one of the hardest pictures of like leaning on a 15 inch gun with your casually with your nice dresses.
I may have to check all my dates and then this one as well, like a guy looking out with a what is that telescope telescope periscope.
I think he is sextant, but it's a little measuring device.
And I don't know, just hanging out. It's pretty cool. But so funny.
Another story and for unfortunate events. One more question.
Is that a lot is that for that there are both of them have a wire coming out the top. Is that for lightning strikes?
That's a lightning rod. So it's grounded further away from the lighthouse.
Yeah, grounded further away. And I assume it keeps it off of the metal that is the lantern room.
Yeah, that would make sense. Probably helps. We mentioned that in our. Yeah.
History, but we talked about it like how to isolate it. Yeah. Nonferrous metals are used for some of the couplers sometimes to like like aluminum or aluminum.
And other ones. So I'm going to dip into the life saving effort.
So in 1858, which is before this effort, assistant keeper Harrington was crossing over the river to Astoria, the city nearby.
When it capsized his personal boat, a man on the far shore saw the assistant climb into the bottom of the upsized boat.
Oh, and we're talking old days. Yeah. He quote sent three Indians in a canoe to rescue him.
Sent. OK. Yeah. But before they could reach him, the boat drifted into the breakers and Harrington was never seen again.
No way. System keeper. He's just going to get supplies.
You're going to town for his leave, whatever it was. So many stories like that. Assistant keeper is just and never being seen again, like not even being able to find them because the areas where they have lighthouses are so such treacherous waters that it's just like, well, he's somewhere.
But well, I always think of Triangle Island because that was one of my earlier episodes I covered and like how treacherous because it's far away, but it's still northwest and it's still Pacific.
I think of like how crazy the storms were out there. They lifted. They lifted the buildings. They knocked over chimneys like, yeah. And until they talk about like waves hitting the rocks so hard that boulders would come flying up like.
That's mind blowing water is terrifying. This is probably a clear day.
I imagine he's like, oh, it's a storm. I'm going to go to town. Yeah, this is not like capsized by waves.
So keep disappointment light station was tended by Captain Joel Munson.
He was the lighthouse center 1865 to 77 in 65 a ship called the industry wreck near the Cape.
24 people are were on board. Only seven of them survived.
It's because they didn't have any life saving equipment that the lighthouse keepers just saw this happen.
Yeah. Yeah. What can you really do? And especially here where getting in the water is bad news and people wait eight days for conditions to be good enough to try to go.
Like there's no way a keeper in some of their stories where keepers row out in their boat and save people and go back and forth.
Like that's not possible here. Exactly what Munson wanted to do. So he was great, greatly disturbed that more people could not have been saved.
Yeah. So he found he found a love of history. This guy found a battered longboat on the beach.
He decided to rebuild it for use as a life saving boat. Casually found and reused. He probably stole that shit.
Munson was an accomplished fiddler and organized two dances in the city of Astoria.
It seems unrelated information. He charged two dollars and fifty per person and to raise over two hundred dollars at the time in the 1800s to fix up the boat.
An old sailor helped Munson fit the boat with cork filled fenders. Kind of neat and innovative.
And the keepers built a boathouse at the station, the lighthouse station for it. So this is the first life saving craft.
That kept his appointment. Yep.
So 1866, a boat called the Scranton was loaded with 800 tons of freight from San Francisco, was driven into the middle sands of the bar.
The keeper Munson on duty launched his craft with a few other men was able to rescue the entire crew.
Holy cow. Ironically, the captain of that ship, Paul Corno of the Scranton,
was also one of the seven survivors of the industry that had wrecked only one year earlier.
He was probably like, is it me? Seven survived. What are the odds? The fact that he goes out on the water is insane. Yeah.
And he crashes at the same place. Oh crap. It is him. The bigger ship.
So through Munson's efforts, a life saving station was established to keep his appointment in the year 1871.
The famous craft became part of the station's initial equipment. The boat he built. He refurbished the boat.
Is it like you can as in like it's it was like the boat. And could you see it today? Like they have it preserved.
The tradition of life saving continues today at the Coast Guard Lifeboat Station and the training school was established on the Cape.
Ah, very cool. You're stealing everything. That's all I gotta say. So I can't even do anything now. Oh, there's lots to cover.
Fine. I'll still do a history book. A new in 1871 as well. Separate category. A new double dwelling was made for the keepers.
It was built. It was 1300 feet north of the lighthouse. Each side of the duplex had 11 rooms.
So this is a big old lighthouse operation. The principal keeper occupied one side. Eleven rooms. Ballin.
And the two assistants shared the other. So new bell house was built that year because a gun blast from a nearby cannon shattered the old one.
Wonder where that came from. Shattered the bell house. The station's slog bell was discontinued in 1881 and transferred to what is now West Point Lighthouse and the Puget Sound.
Okay. Which I was like West Point? Like no, not that one. But you know, the Military Academy. No, I don't know. But well, let me look it up. No. Before I misquote myself.
West Point. I know people who went there. Yeah, it's in New York. Yeah. Puget Sound's in Washington. Okay. Just had to make sure. Oh, you clutch your pearls. Had to check myself.
So I'm going to slide. Oh, we're here. This is the party. James Anderson served as assistant keeper for several years before being promoted to headkeeper at a different lighthouse. Four years there. He returned and he was the headkeeper at Cape Disappointment.
On purpose or did they assign him to Cape Disappointment? He replaced Munson when Munson retired. Oh, I see. And he already knew the stuff. So he already knew the lighthouse.
I just wonder if this is like somewhere people don't want to be. It sounds like a challenging but respected place. Yeah. Well, if they're having fancy lady parties, then.
Yeah. Life saving. Yeah.
So he was 17 years at the lighthouse. Anderson and some of his entries are as follows. 1881. Marriage at the lightkeeper's dwelling house. James Anderson to Henrietta Sorensen.
Light breeze from the southwest. Very warm. James was 54 years old. Henrietta was 24 years old. Oh, yikes. It was a beautiful day. 1883. A more beautiful sunset could never have been witnessed as last night.
So brilliant clouds and horizon all around for great distance with all imaginable colors and kinds. And every day I could behold for about 20 minutes after the setting of the sun when all changed.
Change lighthouse lamp and burner. Oh, 1883. I thought you were going to say that like it had stormed or something.
Two days later. Born at the lightkeeper's dwelling at 3 a.m. to the wife of James Anderson, a daughter. In the lighthouse. In the keepers cottage? Yep. Ten months later.
Infant daughter of James Anderson and Henrietta Anderson died at 4 a.m. The fort was called Fort Canby, by the way. She was age nine months, 26 days. Peace be with her soul.
And 1885. Died at keepers dwelling house. Infant child of James Anderson. Four o'clock p.m. Henrietta Marie Anderson. Age five months, 15 days.
Do they say what from these deaths? I don't think they knew in the 1800s. You know, he just died. You know, sudden instant, was it SIDS? Yeah.
Infant death. Yeah. Or could have had birth anomalies or could have been the weather. It's cold. You know. Yeah. I don't know. So it makes me sad.
Big bummer. The point of that on those entries was that there was a big variation in what was happening at that lighthouse. So what is this? Oh, North Head. Yeah. So North Head in its final and stilted today.
This is what it looks like. It's different. I know. It's not as nice as it was. I think they had more money and I don't know the full story, but I just it's more official. Yeah.
But this little fourth order, these are red panes of glass. It's black and white, but these are red panes. This is what replaced the first order lens at Cape Disappointment.
Red and white flashing. That's fun. The original one was flashing or fixed. Solid white, I think. OK. That would make sense if you were trying to line up to it and come into the come into the mouth of the river.
What is that called? The into the Cape. The Cape was like an inlet. Yeah. Like a like a subtraction of earth. I feel like there's a name. Yeah. I feel like there's some kind of name for it, but whatever.
So the first order lens that we're talking about is still on display at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center Cape Disappointment. Oh, fun.
The black band, which is not shown in this image, but it's now shown on today's Cape Disappointment that was added in 1930 to distinguish it separately from North Head.
I just forgot about it. It's white and then a large black band in the middle. Yep. And North Head is only two miles away. Oh, yeah. That's nice.
Toyota Tacoma. I think the point of this is this is a modern current photo. So what's on the far side of the lighthouse? There's a building there that looks new or like military kind of like a radio station.
It is. So they call it a Class C radio beacon. I don't know what that means, but a class. It was established in 1936 at Cape Disappointment. The lighthouse the following year, the light was electrified. So 1937 light was electrified, but it wasn't automated.
And so it stayed that way for 30 years. In the 60s, the Coast Guard was going to discontinue it. It said that there are other range lights now in the area. Protests, of course. Let's go protest by the Columbia River Bar pilots.
You can make it different. Which are an important group still to today in this area to keep the light in service because they knew it. They don't change stuff.
Yeah, light was automated in 1973, but which is pretty late. But the original icon of the Northwest Lighthouses still equipped with its fourth order lens remains active to today.
Ah, so has a for now. It's love that spinny red and white fourth order.
So, and you can. I showed you that first image. That was kind of a drone image. I got another one for you. This is kind of a drone image too, I guess. But this we just look from the other side. Now this side. This is so pretty. Dead man's cove.
It's very scary land. Wow. That's great picture. So this is, oh, look a man.
This is nearby there. I didn't want to cover it because there's too much detail. You can look it up on your own if you're interested. There's a hike.
And then up along the trail. You can also be in dead man's cove. There's like a tree in the middle of the water. It's really pretty. And of course, tide comes in and out.
But this is a beautiful area to hike in. You have the evergreens going all the way up to the coast. And there are some really dramatic pictures here of different waves breaking, you know, pretty noisy area. Yeah.
So I just think that's super cool.
We have a giveaway. Let's go. You made it this far. You might win. We appreciate you all.
So that is that is my story. And I've seen so much and it's been like a week of learning about Cape Disappointment Lighthouse that I included only a couple items.
We could probably talk like a three part on this. So especially when you get your hands on like keepers entries and like correspondence and stuff, it's easy to go down the rabbit hole.
Well, I got to give a shout out of one lighthouse friends, of course, a great source, but to the I saw they cited a source which was from USA LHS.
A paper was written in 2005. You went deep into the whole thing, man. And some of these images came from there.
They just did a great job. I know it's a historical society. So like I mentioned last time, they changed their website. So now it's a lot easier to research on it.
Yeah. And so they did a good job with that. So they do a good job. We really appreciate it. But it's just a beautiful part.
I wanted to say I started with all I was going to cover today was the Orioles crash. Right. Because it was like, oh, it was a ship that was delivering lighthouse parts and it crashed.
That's funny. And then they built a lighthouse right next to where it crashed. It's funny. I didn't know all the connections. And then I was like, oh, I've got to talk about Cape Disappointment.
So that's what episode I'm so glad we finally covered that because we've talked about it a lot.
How often do I get to use my own pictures? Huh? Oh, yeah. So thank you all for listening and follow us.
Send us a share on the Amy platform. But I give away officially open when this baby drops and then we're going to pick a winner on Christmas Day as a we'll have an episode dropping there, too.
It'll just be a little one, a little cute one. But we'll be announcing the winner of our giveaway and then we'll ship for free anywhere within the U.S.
Sorry to all of our international friends. We do have a lot of international friends. Yeah. Canada is high up there as well.
Canady, as I like to say. All right. Yeah. Close this out. Yeah. Follow us on Instagram and you can listen to us on Spotify, Apple, Google, anywhere. Listen to your podcast or on the Lighthouse.com where you can also leave us a review.
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