Grays Harbor Lighthouse

Washington's Pacific shore is famously hard on ships, a long stretch of surf, shifting sandbars, and fog with almost no safe harbors. Grays Harbor is the best of the few, a large bay where the Chehalis River meets the sea, and by the 1890s the timber and shipping trade moving through it badly needed a strong coastal light to mark the entrance. Construction began in 1897, and on the night of June 30, 1898, the Grays Harbor Light shone for the first time.

The tower was placed on Point Chehalis, on the south side of the harbor mouth at what is now Westport. When it was built it stood much closer to the water; over the decades sand has accreted around the point, so today the lighthouse sits set back from the surf behind dunes and grass, a quiet marker of how much this restless coast has shifted.

Carl Leick, who designed many of the Pacific Northwest's lighthouses, considered Grays Harbor his finest work, and it shows. The tower rises in a clean octagon of concrete and brick, taller and more graceful than most, and inside it the original first-order Fresnel lens still occupies the lantern room. That lens was ground and assembled in Paris in 1895, a masterwork of nineteenth-century optics with hundreds of precisely angled glass prisms that gathered a small flame into a beam thrown far out to sea.

Most lighthouses long ago lost their original lenses to museums or modern beacons, so finding one still in place, in the very tower it was built for, is part of what makes this stop special. Climbing the 135 steps of the internal spiral stair brings you up beside the great glass lens and out to a lantern-room view that takes in the harbor, the town, the surf line, and the open gray Pacific all at once.

As with lighthouses everywhere, technology eventually made the keepers unnecessary. The Coast Guard automated the light and no longer needed people living at the station, and the tower risked slipping into neglect. In 1998, on the hundredth anniversary of that first lighting, the local Westport-South Beach Historical Society negotiated a lease with the Coast Guard and set about cleaning and stabilizing the tower.

By the early 2000s it was declared safe again, and guided public climbs resumed. Today the same historical society runs the tower alongside a maritime museum nearby, so a visit can pair the climb with exhibits on the Coast Guard, the lifesaving service, and the fishing and shipping heritage of this stretch of coast. It is a working piece of maritime history kept alive by the town that grew up around it.

The lighthouse sits at the edge of Westport, a short drive or walk from the harbor, the marina, and the nearby state park beach. Tours run on a seasonal schedule, with more days offered in summer and fewer in the cooler months, so it is worth checking before a long detour. There is a small admission, and climbers need to meet a minimum age and height because the stairs are steep and narrow.

Give yourself an hour or so for the climb and the story that comes with it, then round out the visit with the maritime museum, a walk on the wide beach, or time at Westport's busy docks watching the fishing and charter boats come and go. The coast here runs cool, windy, and often foggy even at the height of summer, which is part of its character. Bring a layer, take your time, and let the tall old light give you the lay of this beautiful, hard-edged shore.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.