Boat passing Point Bonita Light which guards the north side entrance to San Francisco Bay in California
Guardian of the northern tip of the Golden Gate, the Point Bonita Lighthouse still uses its original second-order Fresnel lens to cast forth a guiding beacon for mariners. In the 1850s, as lighthouses started popping up along the West Coast, mariners cried for a light to mark the entrance of the Golden Gate whose recalcitrant currents, dangerous shoals, and incessant clinging fog had strangled the journey of many a vessel. The Lighthouse Board originally designated Point Lobos, the south entrance of the Gate, as the location for a lighthouse, but local mariners fought the idea, arguing that the north side, Point Bonita, could be approached within 150 yards and would provide a safer entrance in rough weather. The Board again showed its ignorance of the Gate when it selected the highest hill at Point Bonita for the site of the lighthouse. California fog is characteristically a high fog, leaving lower elevations clear. The original lighthouse was a 56-foot, conical brick tower, situated 260 feet above the sea. A one-and-a-half-story brick and stone cottage was built near the tower, and the first keeper, Edward Colson, lit the lamp inside the lighthouse’s 2nd-order Fresnel lens for the first time on May 2, 1855.
Size: 3435px × 5115px
Photo credit: © Chad Ehlers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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