West Point Lighthouse - Seattle, Washington
Posted by: 
Hikenutty
N 47° 39.725 W 122° 26.124
10T E 542390 N 5278897
The West Point Light, also known as the Discovery Park Lighthouse, is a 23-foot-high lighthouse on Seattle, Washington's West Point which juts into Puget Sound and marks the northern extent of Elliott Bay.
Waymark Code: WM1GD1
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 05/04/2007
Views: 50
The following excerpt is from
Washington: A Guide to the Evergreen State, published in 1941.
A road winds down to the beach below and to WEST POINT LIGHTHOUSE, built in 1881. Once a crude wooden structure with a lighting system consisting of fish- or whale-oil-burning lamps, the lighthouse is today (1941) of the most modern type, with a flashing, or occulting, electric light, showing alternate red and white as it rotates, and with a combined candlepower of 17,000. page 229, from the Fort Lawton section of the Seattle Points of Interest section.
The West Point Light, also known as the Discovery Park Lighthouse, is a 23-foot-high lighthouse on Seattle, Washington's West Point which juts into Puget Sound and marks the northern extent of Elliott Bay. According to a Coast Guard estimate, its flashing light has put in more than 400,000 hours of service. The beacon can be seen from fifteen miles away.
Opening on November 15, 1881, and featuring a fourth-order Fresnel lens, it was the first manned light station on Puget Sound and cost $25,000 to build. It was illuminated with a kerosene lamp for its first 44 years, until it was attached to Seattle's electric grid in 1926. It became automated in 1985, the last station in Washington to do so.
The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Under the National Historical Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, in early 2003, Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation applied to the United States Department of the Interior to take custody of the lighthouse, and the lightkeeper's residence from the United States Coast Guard and incorporate it into Discovery Park. The city was granted the property in October of 2004.
The park offers weekend tours of the lighthouse. Call (206) 386-4236 for information.