Photo: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
The Yaquina Bay Lighthouse on the bluff above the north jetty is one of the oldest buildings in Newport. It also had one of the shortest working lives of any lighthouse on the coast.
Three years of light
The lighthouse was first lit in 1871. Only three years later, the light was put out when the taller Yaquina Head Lighthouse opened a few miles north. The keeper and his family moved on, and the building sat empty for long stretches.
Saved by the community
Over the years the building was used for other purposes and came close to being torn down. Local residents and historical groups pushed to save it. It was restored and, in 1996, relit as a private aid to navigation.
Visiting today
Today it is part of Yaquina Bay State Recreation Site and is open to visitors, with rooms set up as they might have been when a keeper’s family lived there.
Rosalind Teague covers ocean science, coastal hazards and the people who shaped the central coast.
