On January 1, 1857, the bark Desdemona ran aground while attempting to cross the treacherous bar at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Oregon-Washington border. Francis Williams, the ship’s captain, was reportedly eager to earn a bonus for entering port before the new year and chose to navigate the difficult passage without a local pilot. He misjudged the channel, and the vessel quickly ran aground on a large sandbar. Efforts to refloat the ship with the help of a U.S. Revenue Cutter proved unsuccessful, and the incoming tide ultimately broke the ship’s hull, causing a total loss of the vessel. The hulking, wooden wreck remained a visible warning to other ships for some time, and the shoal where it foundered was officially named “Desdemona Sands.”

Map from 1902 showing proposed location of lighthouse Photograph courtesy National Archives

Captain Williams claimed that an off-position navigational buoy was to blame for his misjudging the channel. Cape Disappointment Lighthouse had been marking the Washington side of the river entrance since October 1856 and Point Adams Lighthouse would go into service on the Oregon side of the river in 1875, but mariners clearly needed a fixed, in-stream navigational aid to avoid the treacherous shoal.

Congress appropriated $24,000, as part of an act approved on June 6, 1900, for the establishment of a light and fog-signal station on the lower end of the Middle Ground of Desdemona Sands. Carl W. Leick drew up the plans and specifications for the station in the spring of 1901, and on December 21 of that year proposals for constructing the project were opened. The lowest bid was accepted, and a contract was entered into on February 7, 1902. According to the terms of the contract, the work was to be delivered by July 12, 1902, but by the end of June, only the piles had been driven into the shoal and a wharf partly built.

The contractor finally finished the station in November, and the Lighthouse Board issued the following Notice to Mariners, announcing the establishment of the light:

Notice is hereby given that on or about December 24, 1902, a fixed white light of the fourth order, illuminating the entire horizon, will be established in the structure recently erected in 12 feet of water (mean low water) on the westerly end of the shoal making off to the westward from Desdemona Sands, inside the mouth of the Columbia River. The light will be shown 46½ feet above mean high water, and will be visible 12 miles in clear weather, the observer’s eye 15 feet above the sea.

On the same date there will be established at the station a Daboll trumpet to sound during thick or foggy weather blasts of two seconds’ duration, separated by alternate silent intervals of 3 and 23 seconds, thus: Blast of two seconds, silent interval of three seconds, blast of two seconds, silent interval of 23 seconds.

The structure is a rectangular platform on piles, supporting an octagonal 1½-story dwelling with pyramidal roof, surmounted by a cylindrical lantern and having a small one-story projection for the fog signal on the westerly side, and the doorway on the easterly side of the dwelling. The building is white with gray trimmings and bronze-colored roof; the lantern gray, with bronze-colored roof.

Thomas Gibson, who had previously served as an assistant keeper at North Head Lighthouse, Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, and Destruction Island Lighthouse, was appointed the first head keeper of Desdemona Sands Lighthouse with Edward J. Lawrence as his assistant. On January 1, 1903, one of the keepers wrote in the station’s logbook: “The New Year came in calm and clear, several of the eleven ships, lying at anchor near the light station, welcome the coming of the New Year by the ringing of bells, singing, music and general Good Cheer.” That would be quite a different New Year’s Day than forty-six years earlier when the Desdemona ran aground.

Keeper Gibson left the lighthouse service less than a month after the light was placed in operation, and Frank E. Wyman took charge of the station. Michael Ludescher was the longest serving head keeper at Desdemona Sands Lighthouse. He was appointed head keeper in 1914 to replace George Policondriotes, who was to be transferred to Cape Flattery. After Ludescher arrived at Desdemona Sands, Policondriotes refused to leave. Officials decided to dismiss Policondriotes, and honor the appointment of Ludescher. Keeper Ludescher earned an annual salary of $756 when he arrived at the station in 1914. When he retired from the station in 1925, his annual salary had more than doubled to $1620.

Photograph showing lighthouse with Cape Disappointment in the background Photograph courtesy Coast Guard Historian’s Office

On November 19, 1914, not long after Keeper Ludescher was placed in charge of Desdemona Sands Lighthouse, the French bark Pierre Antoine was towed into the Columbia River after making a swift passage from Antwerp Belgium in just 139 days. The vessel carried steel, coke, salts, and pig iron, and its captain didn’t learn that war had erupted in Europe until being so informed by a pilot upon his arrival in Astoria. When the Pierre Antoine’s two anchors were pitched overboard near Astoria, a compressor failed, causing the loss of both anchors and around 300 fathoms of chain. The Pierre Antoine drifted helplessly with the tide and struck Desdemona Sands Lighthouse, damaging the foundation of the structure. The owners of the bark were forced to reimburse the government for the $541 spent in repairing the lighthouse.

Albert Beyer, Jr. was promoted from assistant to head keeper at Desdemona Sands upon the retirement of Keeper Ludescher in 1925, and Arvel A. Settles was appointed assistant keeper at that time. Settles had spent the first five years of his lighthouse-keeping career in California at Point Arugello and Point Arena, but received an inter-district transfer in 1925 so he could be closer to his widowed mother-in-law and her children. Unlike the previous stations where Settles had served, there was no housing for the families of the keepers at Desdemona Sands. “It was not my favorite station,” recalled Helga Settles, “because I had to live in Hammond with our four children while Arvel and the principal keeper alternated tending the lighthouse.” Helga would occasionally take her children out to the lighthouse in a rowboat with an outboard engine so they could spend more time with their father.

In December 1926, Keeper Beyer was absent from the station for ten days without approval. During an inspection of the station on the twenty-sixth of that month, the superintendent examined the stations records and discovered Beyer had failed to record his absence. The following month, Keeper Beyer applied for leave on January 5, but then left the station on the eighth before learning that his leave had not been approved. This time, Beyer did hire a replacement to cover for him. When this second infraction was discovered, the superintendent immediately suspended Keeper Beyer and then had him transferred to Tillamook Rock and demoted to fourth assistant keeper.

In 1933, efforts began to electrify and automate the station. New fog signal and lighting equipment and 8,000 feet of submarine cable were purchased that year, and the following summer, the tender Rose laid the cable between the offshore lighthouse and a new power shed built near Fort Stevens to house transformers and a stand-by generator that would be used in case commercial power failed.

On October 23, 1934, a keeper penned what he thought was the last entry in the station’s logbook: “To Day is Finis at station. Left at 4 p.m.” Two days later, the entries continued: “Ordered to return to station…new signal out of commission.” The final, final entry was made on November 6, 1934: “This is finish of this station for sure.”

On February 28, 1935, the light and fog signal were transferred to a new woodpile structure surmounted by a wood-frame, pyramidal tower sheathed with asbestos cement sheets. The light was exhibited at a height of thirty-six feet above average high-water level. The total cost of the automation project was $19,502. No longer needed, the old Desdemona Sands Lighthouse was reportedly demolished in the early 1940s.

In 1964, the Coast Guard announced plans to discontinue Desdemona Sands Light and Fog Signal as part of a rearrangement of buoys and navigation aids in the area. The light, which had been active since 1902, was discontinued on June 9, 1965.

Keepers:

• Head: Thomas Gibson (1902 – 1903), Frank E. Wyman (1903 – 1908), Axel A. Karlson (1908 – 1913), George Policondriotes (1914), Michael Ludescher (1914 – 1925), Albert Beyer, Jr. (1925 – 1927), James E. Creed (1927 – 1928), Anders G. Berner (1928 – 1933).
• Assistant: Edward J. Lawrence (1902 – 1904), Ole Olsen (1904 – 1905), Axel A. Karlson (1905 – 1906), Nils P. Adamson (1906), Iver J. Birkestol (1906 – 1907), William J. Pearson (1907 – 1908), Gust. J. Hall (1908 – 1909), Loring S. Parrott (1909), George A. Lee (1909), Earl C. Bryan (1909 – 1910), Robert McKlern (1910), Jacob Eriksen (1910 – 1911), George Policondriotes (1912 – 1914), William Wirta (1914 – 1918), Herman Johnson (1918 – 1923), Albert Beyer, Jr. (1923 – 1925), Arvel A. Settles (1925 – 1927), Anders G. Berner (1927 – 1930), Roy Jacobsen (1930), John B. Bray (1930), Olace W. Miller (1930 – 1931), Gordon D. Hodge (1931), Frank W. Dorrance (1931 – 1932), Ed Laschinger (1932 – 1933), Winton Cole (1933), William J. Anderson (1933 – 1934)

References:

1. Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board, various years.
2. Umbrella Guide to Oregon Lighthouses, Sharlene and Ted Nelson, 1994.
3. Lighthouse Keeper Official Personnel Folders from archives.uslhs.org.

The modern light that occupies the site is best seen by boat. The Fresnel lens used in Desdemona Sands lighthouse is on display at Mukilteo Lighthouse, and the station’s fog bell can be seen at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria.

The modern tower is owned by the Coast Guard.

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