Point Arena Lighthouse

By the 1860s too many ships had wrecked on the rocks off Point Arena for the government to ignore it, and in 1870 the first lighthouse here went into service, one of a small group of tall coastal towers California built that decade. The original was a graceful brick-and-mortar tower with an ornate iron balcony, and its job was to warn vessels off the point and guide the coastal traffic that carried lumber and goods up and down this hard, foggy shore.

At its heart shone one of the finest lenses ever made, a first-order Fresnel lens built in France from 258 hand-ground glass prisms, weighing more than six tons. It threw a beam far out over the water in a pattern of two flashes every six seconds, a signature that told captains exactly which point they were passing in the dark. That lens served for more than a century before a modern beacon took over, and it now sits in the site's museum where you can walk around it and see the craft up close.

The San Andreas Fault runs right past the point, and in April 1906 it let go in the great earthquake best remembered for burning San Francisco. Near Point Arena the ground tore and shifted by roughly fifteen feet, and the shaking was so violent it cracked the brick tower and wrecked the keeper's house beyond repair. Both had to be torn down.

When the lighthouse was rebuilt in 1908, its engineers tried something new. Rather than brick, they poured the tower in concrete reinforced with steel rods, making Point Arena the first lighthouse in the country built that way, a tower designed to ride out the next quake instead of falling to it. Standing at its base and looking up, you are looking at a direct answer to the disaster of 1906, and a piece of engineering history as much as a lighthouse.

The lighthouse no longer stands alone on its point. The bluffs and shoreline around it are now protected as the Point Arena-Stornetta lands, added in 2014 as the first shoreline unit of the California Coastal National Monument, roughly 1,600 acres of wild coast open to the public. Trails run out along the bluff tops to sea stacks, tide pools, and hidden coves, past wildflowers in spring and seabirds year round.

From late fall into spring this is one of the great whale-watching perches on the California coast, as gray, humpback, and blue whales pass by on their long journeys between Alaska and Mexico. On a clear day you can stand at the edge of the continent with the tower behind you and watch spouts out on the water. It is the kind of place that rewards lingering, so plan for a walk after you climb the tower.

The lighthouse sits at the end of Lighthouse Road, about two miles north of the town of Point Arena along the Mendocino coast. It is a working historic site run by a nonprofit, with a museum in the old fog-signal building, guided and self-guided tours, and the chance to climb the tower for a sweeping view of the coast and ocean. The tower climb is a long spiral stair, so wear sturdy shoes and pace yourself.

The point is exposed and the weather changes fast, so bring a warm layer and a windproof jacket even when it looks sunny inland, and check the hours before you set out, since a foggy day can still be a fine one out here. Give yourself a couple of hours for the tower, the museum, and a walk along the bluffs, and you will come away with a real sense of this dramatic, fault-riven edge of California.

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