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.
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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.
Quite often, the lighthouse was shrouded in fog, rendering it useless to seamen. To provide some sort of navigational aid in these conditions, an eight-foot-long cannon was acquired, and Edward Maloney, a retired army sergeant, was hired to fire it once every half-hour in times of fog starting on August 8, 1855. Just a few months later, Maloney sent the following complaint to the secretary of the Lighthouse Board. “I cannot go to town. I cannot find any person here to relieve me not 5 minutes, I have been up 3 days and nights had only 2 hours rest I asked Mr. Colson to relieve me for a little time, told me he could not I was nearly used up. All the rest I would require in the 24 hours is 2 if I only could get it.”
An assistant was soon hired to provide some relief for Sergeant Maloney, but all the effort to fire the cannon was in vain, as mariners reported it was inaudible from the water. Fed up, Maloney soon resigned, and by August 1856, the cannon, the west coast’s first fog signal, was replaced by a mechanically struck bell installed near the lighthouse.
By the 1870s, it was clear that the fog signal and lighthouse should be relocated to the southwestern tip of Point Bonita, where they would be at a lower elevation and better able to serve mariners. A narrow path was carved into the rocky point and a landing platform, with a boom for unloading supplies, was built in Bonita Cove. A railway with a 45-degree incline connected the platform to the path, and a steam-powered winch was employed to pull small cars filled with supplies and construction materials up the track. One section of the rocky face proved impenetrable, and a wooden walkway had to be constructed to skirt this portion of the cliff.
A fog signal commenced operation at the new site in 1872, but two years later, it was undermined by a landslide, and the point was further leveled to provide a more secure site for another signal.
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The new lighthouse went into operation on February 2, 1877. Everything from the lower balcony up is from the original 1855 tower, including the Fresnel lens and eagle-shaped rainspouts. At 124 feet above sea level, the new tower was 200 feet lower than its predecessor.
There have been three light signatures at Point Bonita. The first light shone steady, but later a mechanical eclipser was installed to produce an occulting light with a signature of 25 seconds on, 5 seconds off. Currently the light flashes once every three seconds.
On the day after Christmas in 1896, Keeper George D. Cobb was on duty amid rain squalls and a gale wind, when he saw a sailboat capsize off the point, sending its three occupants into turbulent water. Cobb reacted immediately and soon had successfully launched the station’s rowboat. Upon reaching the sailboat, he found two unconscious men in the water and managed to pull them aboard his vessel. The third victim, cut and bleeding profusely, was soon found amongst some nearby rocks, and Cobb succeeded in pulling him aboard as well. All three of the sailors survived the incident, and Keeper Cobb was awarded the Life-Saving Service’s silver medal for his heroic rescue. This accident further punctuated the need for a life-saving station on the northern side of the Golden Gate. Such a station was established on Point Bonita in 1899.
In 1903, yet another fog signal building was built on Point Bonita just below and to the west of the lighthouse, and a new keeper’s residence was eventually built where the former fog signal had stood (at the eastern end of the suspension bridge). Although the keeper assigned to this dwelling no longer had to make a lengthy journey to reach the lighthouse, he was faced with other challenges. Keeper Alex Martin, who lived in the dwelling with his wife and young children, built harnesses to tether his children when they played outside. This foresight was prudent as a daughter, Dorothy, was once found dangling over the cliff in her harness. Unfortunately, no such restraint was provided for the family cat, and it fell to the water below.
The Point Bonita Lighthouse could be accessed by foot until 1940, when erosion cut a gap in the trail near the lighthouse. A breeches buoy was temporarily set up to permit access to the lighthouse until a wooden causeway was built. In 1954, the suspension bridge, which appropriately mirrors the style of the Golden Gate Bridge, was built over the chasm. After a Federal Highway Administration report concluded that the rusting bridge posed a danger to the visiting public, it was closed in 2010. Work on a new suspension bridge of a similar design began in September 2011, and the new bridge allowed public access to the lighthouse to resume in April 2012. The price tag for the work, which was built by Flatiron West of Benicia, was around $1 million.
The original keepers' dwelling was old and decrepit by the 20th century, but the residence would not be replaced until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake brought it crashing down in the early morning hours. Fortunately, the third assistant keeper and the family of keeper Hermann Engel escaped the crumbling building without injury. The original lighthouse, minus its lantern room, had been left standing atop Point Bonita as a daymark. It managed to survive the earthquake, but in 1907 the War Department demanded its removal, claiming it interfered with their purposes on the point.
On December 31, 1979, Point Bonita witnessed an unusual shipwreck. The tugboat Sentinel was pulling two barges through the gate: the Kona, carrying lumber, beer, and paper, and the Agattu, carrying deadly chlorine gas and a potentially explosive fertilizer component.
The tugboat hit unbelievable swells of 35-40 feet, and the towlines snapped setting both barges adrift near perilous rocks. If the Agattu lost its cargo, the ensuing vapor cloud would force the evacuation of the 700,000 residents of San Francisco.
The Kona hit the rocks sending logs and beer into the water. Miraculously, the Agattu landed further north in softer water. The canisters were safely airlifted from the Agattu, but Kona's beer was completely unsalvageable.
Point Bonita was the last manned lighthouse on the California coast. The last keeper, who by that time was living in Coast Guard housing constructed at the former life-saving station, left in April 1981. Point Bonita Lighthouse is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is run by the National Park Service. The Coast Guard continues to maintain the light and fog signal.
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