The lighthouses found along the Oregon Coastline – north and south – draw thousands of visitors each year. Most still function, sending out light into the gloom and night. Much less is known about a trio of lighthouses guiding ships down the mighty Columbia River – a river referred to in 1766 as the “Oregon” to the port of Portland.

Getting across the notorious Columbia River bar was only the first leg. Ships on their way to Portland then had a long river voyage up the Columbia – 101 miles – followed by a right turn up the Willamette – another 11 miles. To help guide them required a bar pilot and once into the river proper, a river pilot would help the rest of the way.

The river channel is dredged today to a 43 foot depth and 600 foot width. Even so, conditions are always changing in the river – tides, wind, weather, seasonal fluctuations. Before the constant dredging, the pilots really had their work cut out. Even today, they earn their good pay.

Before the dredging and today’s radar, depth finders, gps and satellite navigation, the pilots used their senses and knowledge. Fall through early spring, visual conditions can get quite dicey with fog and weather. In three critical spots along the river, lighthouses went up.

DESDEMONA SANDS LIGHTHOUSE

BEGINNINGS

Desdemona Sands is one of three lighthouses built along the Columbia River.  One of two lighthouses built out in the river on wooden piles driven into the river bottom.  Money was appropriated for the lighthouse in 1900 at the site of a river buoy marking the beginning of the nine mile stretch of sands pushing the south channel further towards the south shore from the middle.  The light was in action by the end of 1902 along with a foghorn.

The lighthouse was built on a rectangular platform sited atop the pilings.  It featured a relatively low tower built above the one and a half story octagonal building.  The tower was thirty-six feet above the river and its Fourth-order Fresnel was visible for about eleven miles.

THE HOUSE

Families of the keepers lived ashore in Astoria.  The keepers would stay out in the light, sometimes for weeks on end if the weather was bad.  There was a boat hoist for the lighthouse boat and a large cistern for the steam-powered foghorn.

In 1933, the light was electrified, and the structure was strengthened the next year.  The light and horn could both operate from the shore with the help of a part-time keeper.  In 1945, the lighthouse was demolished, replaced by a light buoy and the foundation for the lighthouse removed in 1964.  The Fresnel lens is part of the Mukilteo Light Station Museum north of Seattle.

WARRIOR ROCK LIGHTHOUSE

BEGINNINGS

Built at the north end of Sauvie Island in 1889, Warrior Rock warns river goers of the entrance to Multnomah Channel and a particularly rocky area of the river.  It was a small two-story building, with a one-room first floor serving as the keeper’s home and the second deck with the light and fog bell.

The bell came from the lighthouse at Cape Disappointment where it was difficult to hear above the crashing waves.  The bell was sent to the West Point Lighthouse at the base of Magnolia Bluff in northwest Seattle, before ending up back on the Columbia.  During operation, the bell rung every fifteen seconds.  One keeper nicknamed the bell “Black Moria” as the striking mechanism often broke meaning he would have to ring the bell manually for hours.

wARRIOR ROCK IN OPERATION

Not until 1913 before an actual keeper’s home went up.  When the river runs high, the lighthouse foundation dropped under water and a cable tram used to reach the light from the keeper’s house.  Electrified in 1928, the keeper could thereafter just turn a switch for the light and bell.

The frame lighthouse replaced in 1931 by a twenty-eight-foot concrete tower atop the same sandstone foundation.  A barge ran into the lighthouse in May 1969.  The bell cracked when pulled up from the riverbed.

With the tower rebuilt – The bell moved to the north side of the Columbia County Courthouse in nearby St Helens.  There is no fog signal today, but a fixed flashing white light still lights the rocky shore on the north end of the island.

You can visit the last of the lighthouses on the Columbia River by boat or at the end of a three-mile hike along the northeast shore of Sauvie Island – you need to buy a parking pass for parking at the end of Reeder Road – $10 per day or $30 annual. It is a nice walk though in spring with high water you cannot walk as far on the beach as you can in the late summer.

WILLAMETTE LIGHTHOUSE

Here is the last of the lighthouses of the Columbia River. From the end of 1895 until 1935, another lighthouse built on wood pilings like at Desdemona Sands, shown forth lighting the entrance of the Willamette River into the Columbia.  The site was on a low-lying island among an elaborate slough system running on the south shore of the Columbia. Much of that system has disappeared with constant dredging providing new lands for industry.

The lighthouse went up just north of Kelly Point.  It was an octagonal building which housed the keeper.  The light was outside on a railing and the fog bell on the porch. 

In 1935, the lighthouse was electrified and automated.  The light and fog signal moved out onto a dike built off the north end of Kelly Point. 

The lighthouse moved by crane to a low piling structure nearer the beach serving to notify Portland of arriving vessels.  In the 1950’s, the building was abandoned burning down not long after.

visiting the site today

You can visit the old pilings on which the lighthouse lay at Kelly Point Park – a city park in Portland. Park you car in the north lot and walk the paved path past a large rest room for about a half mile. A little longer alternative hike can be found here. Watch for beach access signs along the way and walk the beach to the confluence. Just above the confluence is a huge anchor and dredge piece noting the development of the area in the 1970’s – the city acquired the land as a park in 1984.

The park is a semi-natural park – it was a seasonal sandbar at one point but is now on a more permanent basis. Dredging tailings from the rivers has put plenty of material for the forests to take shape, appearing more primeval each year as you walk through the tall cottonwood trees rustling with breezes off the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. On warm summer days, the sandy beaches along both rivers are an attraction.

Most have no idea of what the pilings in the river – technically still the Willamette, but only barely. Nor do they know about the other row of pilings leading out to where to lighthouse foghorn moved to – next to a more modern river Navigation marker. The days of lighthouses along the Columbia River reduced from three to one.

SOURCES

To learn more about the Life-Saving Services and their continued work as part of the Coast Guard, you really need to start with David Pinyerd’s master thesis from the University of Oregon which he has put online, The Preservation of Pre-World War II Coast Guard Architecture in Oregon. He also authored one of the Arcadia Publishing volumes from their popular Images of America series, Lighthouses and Life-Saving on the Oregon Coast.

Several articles have been cited from the Oregon Encyclopedia efforts operated by the Oregon Historical Society – Washington has a similar effort entitled Historylink.

There is lots of information to be found on the Lighthouse Friends website and the US Life-Saving Service Heritage Association website, as well.