St. George Reef is a collection of exposed rocks and covered ledges lying about eight miles northwest of Crescent City. In 1792, Captain George Vancouver named the outcroppings Dragon Rocks, while the nearest point of land was dubbed Point St. George in hopes that the dragon might one day be slain. The dragon, however, was still alive and well on July 30, 1865, when the steam side-wheeler Brother Jonathan struck the reef and went down. Of the 244 people aboard, only nineteen managed to escape in a small craft.

St. George Reef Lighthouse with launch on platform Photograph courtesy National Archives

Two years after the loss of the Brother Jonathan, the Lighthouse Board requested funds for the construction of St. George Reef Lighthouse, however, with the costly Civil War having ended just two years before, Congress was unwilling to allocate the large sum required to construct a lighthouse on the exposed reef.

With the completion in 1881 of Oregon’s Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, Alexander Ballantyne proved that construction of a lighthouse on an exposed rock was feasible. The following year, Congress granted an appropriation of $50,000 that allowed Ballantyne to visit St. George Reef and survey Northwest Seal Rock, the outermost rock in the reef that would serve as the foundation for the lighthouse.

In 1883, an additional sum of $100,000 was allocated to start construction. The schooner La Ninfa was towed to the reef in early April 1883 and moored to four buoys and two points on the rock to serve as the barracks and mess hall for the construction crew. A cable was stretched from the schooner to the top of the rock, and a platform suspended from the cable was used to transport the workmen to and from the rock. When the seas threatened to wash over the rock, the workers would lash their tools to iron rings set into the rock and then ride the platform to safety.

Powerful explosives were used to blast away chunks of the rock. After the fuse was lit, Ballantyne would cry “fire in the hole,” and the men would “hunt holes like crabs” to protect themselves from the flying fragments of rock that would shower over the area, even reaching the schooner on occasion. By September, the crew had terraced an area of the rock for construction of the lighthouse.

The work season on the rock was limited to the spring and summer months when the seas were more accommodating. During the fall and winter of 1883, plans were made for the next construction season. In December, Ballantyne heard of a granite deposit along the Mad River near Humboldt Bay. When the granite proved to be of excellent quality, Ballantyne contracted the Mad River Railroad to transport the granite to the north spit of Humboldt Bay, where James Simpson built a depot to finish the granite stones and load them on ships for transportation to the reef.

St. George Reef Lighthouse in 1955 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Work on the reef began again in June 1884, and the first several weeks were spent building a derrick with a ninety-foot boom on the rock. Then, word was received that Congress had appropriated a scant $30,000 for the work season instead of the requested $150,000. Funding was a disappointingly small $40,000 in 1885, and then totally lacking in 1886. During these three years, the work was limited to quarrying the granite blocks, finishing them at the depot, and performing minimal maintenance work at the construction site. The District Engineer complained in his report that, “It would be difficult to point out more clearly than has already been done, the uselessness of beginning construction without money enough to push to the uttermost this difficult work during the short favorable season.”

A sum of $120,000 for construction was appropriated in March 1887, and even more was granted for the subsequent two work seasons. Each spring, the damage inflicted on the site during the preceding winter had to be repaired before the contracted ships could begin hauling the large granite blocks from the depot at Humboldt Bay to the rock. During 1887, eight levels of blocks, not counting the foundation stones, were set for the elliptical pier, which would hold the engine room, coal room, 77,000-gallon cistern and the base of the lighthouse. Some of the stones weighed as much as six tons, and each was finished so that it would require at most a three-sixteenths-of-an-inch joint between it and its neighbors. As many as fifty-two men worked on the rock at one time, and they were eventually able to live in quarters constructed on the rock. A chartered steamer delivered granite blocks to the reef “night and day” as needed, and the laborers on the pier worked Sundays when stone was on hand ready for setting. The pier was raised to its thirteenth course or level in 1888, and in 1889, nearly all of the work on the pier, which contained 1,339 dressed stones laid in twenty-one courses, was completed.

The final appropriation, which brought the total cost of the lighthouse to $721,000, came late in September 1890, which prevented any work being done that year. The next spring, the crew returned to the rock, and the first stone for the lighthouse tower was set in place on May 13. By the end of August, the tower was complete, and the rest of the work season was spent removing the scaffolding around the tower, completing the interior, and installing the lantern room and spiral staircase supplied by the Phoenix Iron Company of Trenton, New Jersey.

Aerial view of elliptical pier and tower Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Only one serious accident occurred during the construction of the lighthouse. On June 16, 1891, a worker was carried over the pier while holding onto one of the big boom’s tag lines and fell to his death. Another close call came during the 1889 work season when a large wave smashed in the crew’s quarters at two in the morning, washing several of the men out of their bunks.

Although the lighthouse was finished in 1891, it would be another year until the Fresnel lens arrived from France. In the meantime, the station’s twelve-inch steam whistle was activated on December 1, 1891 and kept the keepers partially occupied until the reef was finally lit for the first time on October 20, 1892. The station’s first-order, Henry-Lepaute lens had fifteen flash panels, and every other one was covered by a ruby pane of glass to produce the characteristic of alternating red and white flashes, separated by fifteen seconds. John Olsen, the first head keeper, and John E. Lind, an assistant, had both been part of the work crew that built the lighthouse. Keeper Olsen was employed in the construction of the lighthouse for three years. Lind would later serve as keeper of Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City.

St. George Reef Lighthouse was one of the least sought-after assignments in the service. Five keepers were typically attached to the station, and they worked in shifts of three months at the lighthouse followed by two months at Crescent City with their families. Service at the station tried the mental health of many keepers and claimed the lives of four of them. First Assistant William Erikson and the station’s boat simply disappeared during a trip to Crescent City in October 1895. According to the Lighthouse Board report, “no vestige of man or boat” was ever discovered.

The worst tragedy at St. George Reef occurred on April 5, 1951, after the Coast Guard had taken control of the country’s lighthouses. Bertram Beckett and Wilbur Walker, two young Coast Guard electrician mates, had been making repairs at the station and were ready to return to shore along with a three-man crew, consisting of Stanley Castello, Ross Vandenberg, and Thomas Mulcahy. The five men were being lowered to the water in the station’s boat when disaster struck. As they neared the foaming sea, a rogue wave struck the launch, filling it with water. With the added weight, a ring, to which one of the supporting cables was attached, tore loose, dropping the bow of the boat and tossing the five men into the frigid water. Fred Permenter, the station’s officer-in-charge, hoisted the swamped launch back up and retrieved an inflatable raft from it. After inflating the raft, Permenter threw it off the station and then jumped from a height of twenty feet into the ocean and swam to the raft. Permenter managed to recover Beckett and Walker, who was likely dead when he was retrieved from the water, while Mulcahy and Vandenberg succeeded in swimming to a nearby mooring buoy. The Winga, a commercial fishing boat summoned to the scene by the Coast Guard, picked up the two men from the buoy and the three men in the raft, and then, after a brief search, recovered the body of Castello. Artificial respiration was administered to Beckett en route to Crescent City, but he along with Walker and Castello were pronounced dead upon reaching medical assistance at the harbor. For his courageous attempt to rescue his fellow coastguardsmen, Fred Permenter was awarded a Gold Lifesaving Medal. Permenter had been in charge of the lighthouse for less than a month when the accident happened.

St. George Reef Lighthouse in 1966 Photograph courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

Water for the steam whistle and the keepers came from rain captured on top of the elliptical pier and fed into the cistern housed within it. Adequate rainfall soon proved to be an issue, and in 1895, the silent interval between the steam whistle’s five-second blasts was increased from thirty-five to seventy-five seconds in order to conserve water.

John Otto Becker was serving as an assistant on the reef in 1909, when a pig was brought to the lighthouse so Becker could prepare an Easter feast of sauerkraut and speck. During the bleak and cold night watches, Becker had been extolling the merits of this special dish and even boasted that Emperor Wilhelm had praised his culinary skills. There was thus great alarm when the pig tumbled into the ocean while pawing mollusks from the reef. With no hesitation, Becker leapt into the water, grabbed the floundering hog, and with its forefeet resting on his shoulders, treaded water until a boat was lowered and the pair was rescued. The pig was thereafter confined to the basement of the lighthouse until he became Easter dinner.

Amazingly, an occasional fierce storm would generate waves large enough to sweep onto the top of the caisson, seventy feet above the sea, and send water over the top of the lighthouse. The tremendous poundings would cause the tower to tremble and the men to fear for their lives. A framed blacksmith shop atop the pier was destroyed by a storm in 1896, and on December 7, 1923, huge seas broke onto the pier with enough force to tear the donkey engine house from its foundation and slide it across the deck. During a storm in 1952, the raging sea tossed rocks through the lantern room glass. Floyd Shelton recalls that “there was a waterfall running down the central spiral staircase from the ocean coming in the lens room 145 feet or so above sea level.”

The weather that pummeled the tower often prolonged the stay of keepers at the lighthouse and delayed the arrival of mail and fresh food. Georges Roux spent more years than any other keeper on the reef, arriving as second assistant in 1910 and leaving in 1939 after having been in charge of the lighthouse for over twenty years. In 1937, a long stretch of stormy weather trapped Roux and his assistants on the tower for fifty-nine days. “After the first four weeks,” Roux later recalled, “we were so talked out and thought out that just to say ‘Please pass the salt’ or ‘Lousy day today, ain’t it?’ became a serious personal affront.” Roux added:

It got so bad that we would try to ignore the presence of each other to avoid scraps. This despite our being solid friends for years. Toward the end, when we opened a can of beans or some kind of can and ate it cold, we would face away from each other – not looking, not talking, just so fed up with each other’s company that it was almost unbearable.

CCG Blackhaw servicing lighthouse Photograph courtesy MKC Roger S. Wright

As soon as the weather improved, life in the tower returned to normal, and the keepers were once again fast friends, talking their heads off.

Keeper Roux was injured in 1939 while attempting to return to the lighthouse. As he maneuvered the station’s launch close to the tower and attempted to grab the hook suspended from the boom’s lifting lines, he was repeatedly tossed about by waves and even slammed into the bottom of the boat. After battling heavy seas for several hours, Roux was forced to return to Crescent City. Suffering from hypothermia and severe bruising, the sixty-two-year old keeper was taken to the local hospital, where he passed away a few days later.

In October 1923, radiotelephones were installed at St. George Reef Lighthouse and Crescent City Lighthouse, after maintaining an armored submarine cable between the reef and shore proved impossible. The last cable used at the station cost $50,000 and was broken within four months of being laid. During the two-and-a-half years it was in service, the cable was broken and repaired five times. After the radiotelephone was established, the lengthy cable was retrieved and pieces of it were used as a link to offshore stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The lighthouses at St. George Reef and Crescent City had three set calling times, and in case of an emergency, the keepers at the reef would broadcast a message requesting anyone who heard it to contact the lighthouse in Crescent City. Broadcast calls were issued several times and always resulted in prompt action.

Some young coastguardsmen understandably had a difficult time coping with the isolation at the remote, wave-swept lighthouse. In August 1951, Rollin Bechtel went berserk and destroyed considerable furniture in the barracks. He was placed in the county jail for “safe keeping,” until the commanding officer could decide what to do with him. Two days later, another coastguardsman accompanied Bechtel to Alameda so he could be treated at a hospital. Three months later, Conrad A. Womack, Leland A. Barbour, and Richard W. Simmons left the station without authorization, in what must have been a coordinated and premeditated act. At the end of each day following their departure, how many days, hours, and minutes the trio had been AWOL was noted in the station logbook. After thirty days, the men were officially declared deserters.

A Large Navigational Buoy (LNB) was placed near the lighthouse in 1975, and the dangerous and costly station was abandoned. Eight years later, the lens was removed piece-by-piece and transported to Crescent City, where it was refurbished, polished, and reassembled in a two-story addition at the Del Norte County Historical Museum.

The St. George Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society was formed in 1988 to restore the lighthouse. Del Norte County had previously obtained the lighthouse from the Bureau of Land Management and leased it to the preservation society in 1996. As part of the restoration effort, the lantern room was removed from the lighthouse during the spring of 2000 and then suspended from a helicopter for the flight to shore. As the helicopter approached land, it came in too low, and the lantern room crashed into the beach. The dome was not badly damaged and was used by Fashion Blacksmith, a local firm, to construct a new lantern room that was returned to the tower in 2001. St. George Reef Lighthouse was relit as a private aid to navigation on October 20, 2002, the 110th anniversary of the first lighting. This lighting failed after a short time, but the lighthouse was activated once again on March 10, 2012.

Approaching lighthouse by helicopter in 2010

As the last crew prepared to leave the lighthouse, Chief Petty Officer James W. Sebastian made the following entry in the station’s old logbook:

It is with much sentiment that I pen this final entry, 13 May 1975. After four score and three years, St. George Reef Light is dark. No longer will your brilliant beams of light be seen, nor your bellowing fog signal be heard by the mariner. Gone are your keepers. Only by your faithful service has many a disaster been prevented on the treacherous St. George Reef. You stand today, as you have down through the years, a tribute to humanity and worthy of our highest respect. Cut from the soul of our country, you have valiantly earned your place in American history. In your passing, the era of the lonely sea sentinel has truly ended. May Mother Nature show you mercy. You have been abandoned, but never will you be forgotten. Farewell, St. George Reef Light.

In June 2021, the St. George Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society signed at twenty-five-year-lease with the County of Del Norte to continue restoration work on the lighthouse. The new lease replaces one signed in 1995 that had expired in 2020. Helicopter tours to the lighthouse were suspended in 2012 after objections from state aviation officials, but an insurance policy to allow volunteers, crews, and lighthouse enthusiasts was secured in 2021 and approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was expected.

Keepers:

• Head: John Olsen (1891 – 1913), John Luckman (1913 – 1918), Georges Roux (1918 – 1939), Chester M. Johnson (1940 – 1945), Joseph L. Richardson (at least 1947 – 1948), James Conrad (1948), Kenneth W. Anderson (1948 – 1950), John A. Jimerfield (1950 – 1951), Fred Permenter (1951 – 1953), Charles A. Carrol (1953 – ), Frank E. Swanson (at least 1955), Donald E. Boekhout (1958 – 1960), Richard J. Covey (1960 – 1961), Trent E. Kallerson (1961 – 1962), William R. Hoffman (1962 – 1963), Joe R. Sais (1963 – 1964), Howard C. Adkins (1964), Theodore E. Allen (1964 – 1965), Bob M. Passot (1965 – 1966), Leo R. Tardiff (1966 – at least 1967), Francis P. Wilson ( – 1968), Ronald Adams (1968 – 1969), Joseph I. Picotte (1969 – at least 1971), James W. Sebastian ( – 1975).
• First Assistant: William Erickson (1891 – 1893), George Goldsmith (1893 – 1894), John E. Lind (1894 – 1901), Edward P. Cashin (1901 – 1903), Klaus P. Larsen (1903 – 1904), Joseph Windle (1904 – 1907), George E. Bassett (1907 – 1908), John Luckman (1908 – 1913), Georges Roux (1913 – 1917), Roland A. Trucker (1917 – 1918), George B. Crandall (1918), George Cottingham (1918 – 1920), Robert Wilson (1920 – 1923), Joseph R. Marhoffer (1923 – 1930), Michael Dolan (1930 – 1931), Frank A. Wheaton (1931 – 1936), James E. Kent (1936 – 1938), Chester M. Johnson (1938 – 1940), Andrews C. Platt (1940), Roy M. Crockett (1940 – at least 1941).
• Second Assistant: George Goldsmith (1891 – 1893), John E. Lind (1893 – 1894), Isaac Knutsen (1894 – 1900), Charles A. Stiner (1900 – 1902), Julius C. Charter (1902), Klaus P. Larsen (1902 – 1903), Joseph Windle (1903 – 1904), Wilhelm Baumgartner (1904 – 1905), George E. Bassett (1905 – 1907), John Luckman (1907 – 1908), Frank Weller (1908 – 1910), August Nelson (1910), Georges Roux (1911 – 1913), Morton M. Palmer (1913 – 1914), Joseph R. Marhoffer (1914 – 1915) David J. Flynn (1915), John H. Walters (1915 – 1916), Henry W.R. Gensch (1916 – 1917), Roland A. Trucker (1917), George B. Crandall (1917 – 1918), Neils J. Bjork (1918 – 1919), Robert Wilson (1919 – 1920), Joseph R. Marhoffer (1920 – 1923), William H. Hoskins (1923 – 1926), George M. Woods (1926 – 1930), Michael Dolan (1930), George W. Petersen (1930 – 1931), Roy L. Murphy (1931 – 1933), Herman J. Pfleghaar (1934), James E. Kent (1934 – 1936), Chester M. Johnson (1936 – 1938), Jens O. Wagner (1938), Russell D. Johnson (1938 – 1940), Roy M. Crockett (1940).
• Third Assistant: John E. Lind (1892 – 1893), Isaac Knutsen (1893 – 1894), George D. Jeffrey (1894 – 1899), Charles A. Stiner (1899 – 1900), Gottfrid T. Olson (1900 – 1901), Julius C. Charter (1901 – 1902), Joseph W. McKenzie (1902), Klaus P. Larsen (1902), Frank Witinell (1902), Wilhelm Baumgartner (1902 – 1904), Severin T. Gundersen (1904 – 1905), George E. Bassett (1905), John Luckman (1905 – 1907), George Stinson (1907), Frank Weller (1907 – 1908), Albert L. Smith (1908), John Otto Becker (1908 – 1909), August Nelson (1909 – 1910), James Gould (1910), Georges Roux (1910), William G. Gough (1911), Joseph H. Bowen (1911 – 1912), Morton M. Palmer (1912 – 1913), Edmond C. Easton (1913), James Connors (1913), Joseph R. Marhoffer (1913 – 1914), John Martinolich (1914), Roy O. Mills (1914 – 1915), John H. Walters (1915), Hans Frederick Jensen (1915 – 1916), Henry W.R. Gensch (1916), Roland A. Trucker (1916 – 1917), George B. Crandall (1917), Sydney T. Palmer (1917), Neils J. Bjork (1917 – 1918), Oscar Benson (1918), Ava P. Millett (1918), Robert Wilson (1918 – 1919), William W. Mitchell (1919 – 1920), Joseph R. Marhoffer (1920), Thomas Frosio (1920), Frank T. Elles (1920 – 1921), Andrew S. Andersen (1921), George F. Thomas (1921 – 1922), Frank W. Sullivan (1922), William H. Hoskins (1922 – 1923), Henry Dennis (1923 – 1924), Gust Benson (1924 – 1925), George M. Woods (1925 – 1926), James E. Dudley (1926 – 1927), Michael Dolan (1927 – 1930), George W. Petersen (1930), Roy L. Murphy (1930 – 1931), Edward H. Schneider (1931), Ross W. Cobb (1931 – 1932), Chester M. Johnson (1932 – 1936), Richard E. Powell (1936), Clifford E. McBeth (1936 – 1937), Jens O. Wagner (1937 – 1938), James C. Moore (1938 – 1939), Andrews C. Platt (1939 – 1940).
• Laborer/Fourth Assistant: Julius C. Charter (1899 – 1901), Joseph Schmider (1901), Joseph R. Marhoffer (1901), John Caughell (1901 – 1902), Ezra Vaughan (1902), Lesing Santino (1902 – 1903), Clyde V. Davis (1903), William P.D. Holmes (1903 – 1904), Elbert Payne (1904 – 1905), Leon Ray Clarke (1905), George R. Rickerson (1905 – 1906), Abednego B. Evans (1906), M. Wagner (1906 – 1907), Carl A. Petersen (1907), William H. Ahrens (1907), Albert L. Smith (1907 – 1908), George H. Darnielle (1908), George Herrman(1908 – 1909), Joseph H. Bowen (1909 – 1911), Albert N. Speelman (1911 – 1912), Morton M. Palmer (1912), Edmond C. Easton (1912 – 1913), James Connors (1913), Joseph R. Marhoffer (1913), Max Friedrich (1913), Richard Graefe (1913 – 1914), Vincent N. Smith (1914), John Martinolich (1914), Roy O. Mills (1914), John H. Walters (1915), Hans Frederick Jensen (1915), Charles M. Butler (1915), Henry W.R. Gensch (1915 – 1916), Victor Koski (1916), Roland A. Trucker (1916), John W. Finley (1916 – 1917), George B. Crandall (1917), Sydney T. Palmer (1917), Neils J. Bjork (1917), Oscar Benson (1917 – 1918), Thomas F. Brown (1918), Rene C. Mistron (1918), Glen Talbott (1919), William H. Hoskins (1919 – 1920), George A. Bruehl (1920), Frank T. Elles (1920), Lloyd L.E. Crowe (1920 – 1921), George Davis (1921), Andrew S. Andersen (1921), Albert Lockner (1921), Frank W. Sullivan (1921 – 1922), William H. Hoskins (1922), Hazel G. Holland (1922 – 1923), Henry Dennis (1923), Gust Benson (1923 – 1924), George M. Woods (1924 – 1925), James E. Dudley (1926), Thomas A. Atkinson (1926), Michael Dolan (1926 – 1927), Eugene P. Paul (1927 – 1928), Bert A. Wilmerton (1928), Craig W. Scoles (1928 – 1929), Thomas G. Lewis (1929), George W. Petersen (1929 – 1930), Roy L. Murphy (1930), Edward H. Schneider (1930 – 1931), Ross W. Cobb (1931), Chester M. Johnson (1931 – 1932), Calvin T. Cooper (1932 – 1933), Ray H.E. Davis (1933 – 1935), Richard E. Powell (1935 – 1936), Clifford E. McBeth (1936), William B. Moll (1936 – 1937), James C. Moore (1937 – 1938), Andrews C. Platt (1938 – 1939), Roy M. Crockett (1939 – 1940).
• USCG: Charles P. Hanrahan (1940 – 1943), Julius J. Dupre (1940 – at least 1941), R.A. Bridges (at least 1940 – at least 1941), Harold J. LeBlanc (at least 1945), Frank J. McGovern (at least 1945), Robert J. Foltz (at least 1945), Norris J. Harpin (at least 1947 – 1948), Clair A. Shackleford (at least 1947 – 1948), George W. Selfridge ( – 1948), Doran R. Breakmann ( – 1948), Thomas E. Franks ( – 1948), William B. Trumbo (1948 – 1949), James L. Evans (1948), George R. Hornbake (1947 – 1948), Edward F. Mattingly (1948 – 1949), Orville M. Burnett (1948), Arthur E. Lind (1948 – 1949), Ward L. Marrow (1948 – 1950), Stanley O. Tate (1948), Stanley R. Spencer (1948 – 1949), Benjamin F. Mastin (1949 – 1950), Henry Booth (1949 – 1950), Russel H. Stockfleth (1949 – 1950), James G. Hansen (1949 – 1950), Stanley G. Castello (1950 – 1951), Tomas J. Dunlap, Jr. (1950 – 1951), William O. Mathews (1950), Donald A. Roach (1950), James T. Pinkston (1950), Ross L. Vandenberg (1950 – 1951), William E. Schoonover (1950 – 1951), Thomas P. Mulcahy (1950 –1951), Haden C. Murphy (1951), Rollin L. Bechtel (1951), Lealand A. Barbour (1951), Conrad V. Womack (1951), Richard W. Simmons (1951), Robert D Johnson (1951 – 1952), Paul C. Blossfield (1951 – 1953), David L. Nimmo (1951 – 1953), Eugene E. Daniels (1951 – 1952), Melvin Braun (1951 – 1952), Joseph Ward (1951 – 1953), Floyd E. Duck (1952– 1953), Clarence D. Oveson (1952 – 1953), Neil Wun (1952 – 1953), Floyd L. Shelton (1952), Emmett J. Gibbons (1953 – 1956), William D. Baldwin (1953– ), James P. Griffin (1953 – at least 1955), Melvin J. Harding (1953), John P. Webb (1953 – at least 1955), Murry D. Schwimmer (1953), Darrold L. Swanson (1953 – ), Rae I. West (1953 – ), Ronald A. Postma (1953 – ), William R. Hoffman (1953 – at least 1955), Byron Horrocks (circa 1954), John O. Jones (at least 1955), Donald L. Pinion (at least 1955), Duane M. Ferguson (1955 – at least 1956), Herman L. Belcher (at least 1957), Lee Kollorz (1958), Robert L. Carsten (1958 – 1960), Robert E. Anton (1958 – 1960), Victor M. Gomez (1959 – 1960), Roland L. Schneider (1959 – 1960), David M. Schneider (1959 – 1960), Duane M. Ferguson (1960), William E. Miller (1960 – 1961), Jack F. Shepler (1960 – 1961), Royal J. Parkinson (1960 – 1961), William J. Wheeler (1961), Donald M. Wait (1961), Don Cameron (1961 – 1962), Kenneth D. Davick, Jr. (1961 – 1962), Gerald F. Heitman (1961 – 1964), Mario Fernandez (1961 – 1962), Henry C. Knutson (1961 – 1963), Robert B. Lawrence (1962), Duane L. Stymans (1962 – 1963), Danny R. Thacker (1962 – 1963), Kenneth E. Clark (1962 – 1963), Jerome C. Wood (1962 – 1963), Dennis A. Streng (1963), Charles D. Williams (1963), Allen W. Larssen (1963 – 1965), Julius D. Wheeler (1963 – 1964), Henderson E. McIntyre (1963 – 1964), Ted R. Smith (1964 – 1965), Evan R. Bragg (1964), Carol D. Bird (1964 – 1965), Stephen M. Jimmerfield (1964 – 1965), Donald C. Hale (1964 – 1965), Carl A. Harden (1965 – 1966), Robert F. Wampler (1965 – 1966), James D. Bates (1965 – 1966), Mitsuo Sato (1965 – 1966), Chris D. Pohlman (1965 – 1966), Robert R. Sage (1965), Ian T. Henderson (1966), Leslie A. Johnson (1966), Gilbert C. LeBarr (1966 – 1967), Ray E. Tims (1966 – 1967), Francis R. Hinds (1966 – 1967), Charles L. Reed (1966 – 1967), Paul A. Soderstrom (1967 – 1968), Ronald C. Markuson (1968), Dennis C. Ahlf (1968 – 1969), Barton D. Zerbe (1968), Elmer H. Ostrand (1968), Dennis R. Bowman (1968 – 1969), Larry B. Wetzel (1968 – 1969), Donald E. Waagen (1968 – 1969), Jack Wilson (1968 – 1969), Joe W. Golden (1969 – 1970), John P. Clark (1969 – 1970), Michael R. Livingston (1969), Donald Cavallero (1969 – 1970), David B. Makin (1969 – 1970), Warren F. Austin (1969), Randall M. Lawrence (1969 – 1970), Richard J. Van Caster (1969 – 1970), John Z. Ritter, Jr. (1970), Roger E. Henneman (1970), J.A. Hepner (1970), Harry E. Augsburger, Jr. (1970), G.D. Bergstrom (1970), D.W. Kowalski (1970 – ), Mike A. Crow (1970 – ), Edmond Magnan (1970 – ), Rusty Woodward ( – 1975), Gary Newberry ( – 1975), James Dunham ( – 1975), Louis Salter ( – 1975).

References

Annual Report of the Lighthouse Board, various years.
1. Sentinel of the Sea, Dennis Powers, 2007.
2. “St. George Reef America’s Most Expensive Lighthouse,” Wayne Wheeler, The Keeper’s Log, Fall 1985.
3. Umbrella Guide to California Lighthouses, Sharlene and Ted Nelson, 1993.

The Del Norte County Historical Society Museum, which houses the first-order Fresnel lens from the lighthouse, is located at 577 H Street in Crescent City. Tel. (707) 464-3922. The museum is open May through September from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. During the rest of the year, the museum is open during the same hours on Saturdays and Mondays.

To view St. George Reef Lighthouse from land, go north on the road that hugs the coast in Crescent City. When you arrive at the airport, turn left on Radio Road and follow it to the beach at its end. This is Point St. George, and the housing used for the keepers when they were ashore is adjacent to the parking area.

The St. George Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society offered helicopter rides out to the lighthouse, but these were suspended in 2012 by the California Department of Transportation. Helicopter flights to the lighthouse were allowed to resume in 2017 after safety concerns were addressed. The flights can be booked on the society’s website.

The lighthouse is owned by the St. George Reef Preservation Society. Tower open during helicopter tours.

Find the closest hotels to Saint George Reef Lighthouse

Kraig writes:

When we visited the lighthouse during the summer of 1998, a diving vessel was being used to recover artifacts from the Brother Jonathan. Several of the artifacts, including gold coins and pottery, are on display at the Del Norte County Historical Society Museum in Crescent City.

At the intersection of 8th Street and Pebble Beach Drive (about a half-mile north along the coast from Battery Point Lighthouse) is located Brother Jonathan Cemetery. Buried in the circular park are at least two of the victims of the shipwreck. The grounds here were actually the original Crescent City Cemetery, but most of the graves were apparently transferred to the city’s new cemetery when it was established.