On Dec. 26, 1940, the Willapa Bay Lighthouse — originally known as the Shoalwater Bay Lighthouse — tumbled to the beach, another victim of severe erosion along the bay’s northern coastline. The lighthouse was located at the southern tip of now-long gone Cape Shoalwater. It served for 80 years showing the way for vessels crossing the treacherous bar into Willapa Bay and as a navigational aid for hundreds of thousands of seagoing vessels traversing up and down the Pacific coast north of the Columbia River and south of Grays Harbor.
When the lighthouse was constructed on a low bluff in 1858, Cape Shoalwater jutted out into Willapa Bay more than a mile south from the current southwestern edge of what has long been known as Washaway Beach. The cape’s tip was a mile west of where Jacobson’s Jetty now lies along the eastern shoreline of the bay.
In service in 1858
The Shoalwater Bay Lighthouse went into service on Oct. 1, 1858 as an aid to navigation for growing oyster and lumber shipping traffic in Shoalwater Bay – renamed Willapa Bay in the early 1900s by civic boosters and local developers.
However, the fourth-order Fresnel lens mounted at the top of a 42-foot circular masonry tower constructed in the center of the keepers’ quarters initially shone for less than a year. The lighthouse was shut down due to the lack of essential supplies, including provisions for the keepers and fuel for the lantern.
With the supply chain again secured two years later, the Shoalwater Bay Light was relit in July of 1861.
1868 threat
Just a decade after the light was initially lit, in 1868, erosion along Cape Shoalwater became a threat. According U.S. Lighthouse Service records, a bulkhead was constructed to protect the building’s foundation and 2,000 square-feet of planking was laid around the grounds to cut down on the massive amounts of sand that constantly blew into the structure.
A year later, lighthouse keepers were ordered to plant shrubs around the bulkhead in an effort to further secure the shifting sands.
According to keepers’ records, in 1875, drift fences were installed. Willow trees and brush were planted in 1881, along with brush mats added to the front of the bulkhead.
Sand accretion woes
A period of newly created dunes from sand accretion over the next few years let the light continue to shine, but at the same time, cut down its visibility, with mariners only able to its beacon from a distance of 11 miles. During stormy or foggy conditions, the light wasn’t visible at all.
Going, going…
Sand accretion again gave way to major and continuous erosion of Cape Shoalwater over the next 50 years, with land loss averaging 50- to 100- feet annually — a rate that continues today along Washaway Beach.
In mid-1938, It became obvious that the structure couldn’t last much longer, resulting in the Lighthouse Service decommissioning the Willapa Bay Lighthouse and her lens shut off for the last time. The whereabouts of that lens is still unknown.
Personnel from the Tokeland U.S. Coast Guard Station stripped the structure of all useful items, including removing all the windows and doors, the lens and all brass fixtures, along with all other equipment, records and furnishings inside, in preparation for the inevitable.
Gone
Finally, a major storm on Christmas Day, 1940, undermined the base of the bluff on which the Willapa Bay Lighthouse perched. The next day, Dec. 26, the south wall of the building collapsed and the lighthouse fell to the beach below.
As a safety measure, the Coast Guard dynamited the building due to the large number of people wanting to explore the dangerous remains.
Retreating beacons
The first of several steel aids to navigation towers was erected farther inland on Cape Shoalwater in early 1940 to replace the lost lighthouse lens with a beacon light. As erosion has continued to eat away the northern Willapa Bay and nearby Pacific coast shorelines, the beacon towers have been moved farther inland, with one currently high on the bluff east of SR105 near Jacobson’s Jetty.