Battery Point Lighthouse
In 1855, the year after Crescent City was incorporated, the California legislature urged the state's delegation in Congress to pass an act to erect lighthouses at “Trinidad and Crescent City." On March 3, 1855, Congress appropriated $15,000 for the construction of a Crescent City lighthouse, and on December 8 President Franklin Pierce designated certain lands as reserved for lighthouse purposes. The lighthouse and keeper's quarters was constructed in 1856, and on December 10 of that year, the fourth-order light was lit for the first time by Mr. Van Court. Theophilus Magruder was named keeper on Christmas 1856.
According to the Lighthouse Board, the Crescent City light was on the seaward extremity of an island off Battery Point . . ., latitude 41° 44' 36" north, longitude, 124° 12' 10" west; fixed white light varied by a white flash every 90 seconds; order of light 4; height of light above the ocean highwater, 77 ft.' distance visible in nautical miles 14-1/2; low white tower, rising from white dwelling with red roof and green shutters; latern, black; outbuildings, white with red roofs.
By the late 1860s the keeper's quarters needed funds for its maintenance. But a number of years passed before money became available. The Board thought the light was of little consequence, because no vessel could enter Crescent City Harbor after dark, and no ship could safely hold a course near enough to shore to make the light. The station was repaired by 1879. On May 18, 1907, the lens was replaced with a new four-panel fourth-order lens.
In July 1939, the United States Coast Guard assumed responsibility for the Crescent City Lighthouse. Fourteen years later, an automatic light was installed, and on November 1, 1953, the United States leased the lighthouse to the Del Norte County Historical Society.
