Yaquina Bay Light

The Yaquina Bay Light is a lighthouse built in 1871 soon after the founding of the city of Newport, Oregon, United States. It is located on the north side of Yaquina Bay, the most populated port between Puget Sound and San Francisco at the time.HistoryThe Yaquina Bay Light was built by Ben Simpson and first lit on November 3, 1871. It was active for only three years due to the establishment of the Yaquina Head Light in 1873, located 3mi north of Yaquina Bay. The bay lighthouse was decommissioned on October 1, 1874, because the Yaquina Head Light made it obsolete. The fifth-order Fresnel lens was moved to the Yerba Buena Light in California for its opening in 1875.The United States Army Corps of Engineers used the lighthouse from 1888 to 1896 as a living quarters while it built the North and South Jetties at the mouth of Yaquina Bay. The United States Coast Guard later used the lighthouse as lookout and living quarters from 1906 to 1915, before moving to their more central quarters just above the busy Newport bayfront. During this period, the Coast Guard also built the eight-story steel observation tower that continues to stand next to the original lighthouse.In 1934, the Oregon State Highway Division bought the property around the lighthouse for a state park. The park site included the lighthouse, coast guard observation tower, and acres of forested bluff, ocean dunes and beaches.