Tillamook Light

Oregon's Sentinel on the Rock

Painting of Tillamook Light courtesy of Bill Trotter

© Elinor DeWire

About a mile off Oregon's Tillamook Head is a chunk of basaltic rock that protrudes above water like the humped, barnacle-covered back of an ugly sea serpent. This forbidding piece of briny real estate lies some 20-miles south of the treacherous Columbia River Bar. Here, the rushing waters of the river estuary meet the ocean flood tide in a maelstrom of churning, surging sea. Maritime historian James Gibbs estimates more than 2000 shipwrecks have occurred in this area in the past few centuries. Years ago, the only witnesses to this destruction were the thousands of sea lions that lounge on Tillamook Rock and frolic in the deep, cold waters around it. After 1881 though, a single watchful eye took over the vigil - the eye of Terrible Tillie. This is the nickname given to Tillamook Rock Lighthouse by its earliest keepers.

The unflattering moniker was well-deserved, for Tillamook Light was not only a terror to build, but many of its lonely lightkeepers likened a tour of duty in it to a prison sentence. Tillamook Rock is among the most desolate and dangerous light stations in the United States and reflects the ever-present struggle between sea and shore along the rugged Pacific Northwest Coast. The need for a lighthouse at Tillamook was recognized soon after the acquisition of the Oregon Territory, but it wasn't until 1878 that decisive action was taken. In that year, Congress appropriated $50,000. to build a sentinel on lofty Tillamook Head, located on the mainland south of present-day Seaside, Oregon. Engineers cautioned against this, however, since Tillamook's extreme elevation often left it shrouded in clouds and fog. A better site appeared to be a mile offshore nearer the north-south shipping lanes at Tillamook Rock.

From the outset, getting on and off the rock proved the most difficult aspect of building and later tending the lighthouse. When the district superintendent was sent to survey the rock, he was forced to leap onto it from a pitching surfboat. Unable to get his instruments landed safely, he proceeded to survey the rock with only a tape measure. From the moment the first pick and chisel hacked into the rock, the public became mesmerized with the awesome danger involved in the undertaking. The sheer cliffs of Tillamook Rock drop straight down into the sea, and depths around the site range between 96 -feet and 240-feet. The water is seldom calm here and never warm - a place fit for birds and sea lions, but not for people.

(Sketch of plan for Tillamook Light is from the National Archives.)

In September 1879, not long after blasting of the foundation began, master mason John Trewares drowned trying to leap onto the rock from a launch. Public outcry arose, and people demanded the project be abandoned. But construction boss Charles Ballantyne cleverly rounded up a new crew and sequestered them away at Cape Disappointment where gossipand inflammatory talk would not reach their ears.

While working on the site itself, crewmen lived in canvas tents lashed to iron rings that had been driven into the rock. Seawater often soaked their tents and ruined provisions. In addition, the men had to stand on a scaffolding of sorts to work on the rock face. When the wind kicked up or seas ran high, the scaffolding pitched and reeled, sometimes awash. A barracks was eventually built for the workmen, with a storehouse nearby for supplies. While the derrick was under construction, men got on and off the rock by means of a lifeline and breeches buoy, similar to the apparatus then in use to rescue shipwreck victims. The breeches buoy was far safer than the dauntless leaps the men had been making from the surfboats, but it was a less than comfortable ride. The supply vessel rolled miserably in Tillamook's unsettled waters, making the lifeline alternately slack and taut. The breeches buoy usually rode like a bucking horse. Rare was the occupant who was put ashore dry and unbruised.

Hassen Cigarette Company's 1910 collector's card of Tillamook Light.

Two and a half years after the initial survey of Tillamook Rock, the lighthouse was completed. Its beam flashed out for the first time on January 21, 1881 to the cheers of crowds ashore, despite the cold weather. The beacon, elevated 131-feet above water and with a 75,000-candlepower beam, could be picked up 22-miles at sea. The lighthouse had cost $123,000 and was among the nation's most expensive to build.

Life on the station was tolerable at best. Five keepers were assigned to duty there with one always on leave. At first the men served three months, followed by two weeks leave, but discontent and a number of unusual ills, both physical and emotional, convinced the Lighthouse Service to institute a 42-day duty followed by 21-days leave. Since the government had stipulated Tillamook be a stag station, "far too confined for both sexes," no women ever served or lived on Tillamook Rock. In 1890, to answer keepers' pleas for better communication with shore, a submarine telegraph cable was laid between Tillamook Light and the mainland. Only a year later, it was severed by stormy seas and had to be reconnected. This scenario was to be repeated many times in the lighthouse's career.

Numerous storms have battered the lighthouse, and the cost to repair it afterwards has far exceeded the original pricetag. In 1882, only a year after the beacon was commissioned, a storm threw seawater over the lantern dome, causing considerable damage. An 1894 storm tossed large boulders against the tower and smashed the lantern. The light was out almost 24-hours while the keepers cleaned sand, seaweed, and dead fish from the priceless prism lens. The worst storm, though, came in 1934 when winds of 110-mph lashed the rock, and stones as heavy as 150-pounds were hurled against the tower and onto the base platform. Henry Jenkins, the youngest of four keepers on duty at the time was washed out of his brass bed after the sea broke off an estimated 25-ton piece of the western overhang of the rock. The severed chunk plunged into the sea and created a huge wave that swamped the lighthouse.

Tillamook's keepers have told many incredible stories about life on the rock; many of the keepers were unbelievable characters themselves. Bob Gerloff, the "Grand Old Man of Tillamook Rock," became so enamored of the solitude and danger of the place he once did a 5-year stretch of duty with no leave. After retirement, he asked to rent a room in the lighthouse but was denied. The government also disallowed his request to be buried at the station. Keeper Roy Dibb played golf at the lighthouse by teeing off on a hard cotton ball attached with a cord to a railing stanchion. He also got exercise by jogging around the tower platform.

In 1957 the Coast Guard decided to close Tillamook Lighthouse. Its functions could by then be performed by a large buoy, and it had proven a very difficult station to man and maintain. It was ceremoniously closed up by the last keeper, Oswald Alik, on September 10, 1957 with a poetic log entry: "Farewell, Tillamook Rock Light Station. I return thee to the elements...May your sunset years be good...your purpose is now only symbol."

Following retirement as an active beacon, the lighthouse held down a variety of occupations. A preservation group had not been able to raise funds to use the lighthouse for historical purposes, so it was put on the auction block. The high bidder was Academic Coordinators of Las Vegas, who bought the structure for a mere $5600 in 1959. Their use of it as an educational site never materialized, and it was resold in 1973 to a New York executive who wanted it for a vacation retreat. He used it just twice before selling it in 1978 to a wealthy Portland, Oregon bachelor. The pricetag had inflated to $27,000, and by now the lighthouse was covered with guano and inhabited by hundreds of seabirds. A lawsuit against the estate of the bachelor put the lighthouse in the hands of an elderly Eugene, Oregon woman. She doubled the price and immediately resold it to a group of speculators in Portland. What started out as a joke for this group - the conversion of the lighthouse into an offshore mortuary - turned into a serious financial operation.

"Eternity By the Sea" columbarium offers mortuary space for those desiring to have their ashes interred on the rock. More than 40,000 niches originally were made available, from the basement all the way to the top of the lantern. With so many spirits inhabiting it, Tillamook Lighthouse truly has found life after death. Prospective lighthouse keepers can be found in every nook and cranny of the station, though they needn't worry about the storms that still pound the rock or sharing their cramped, secluded quarters with seabirds. Tillamook has become a sanctuary for departed souls who cannot leave the sea, even in death. Had devoted lightkeeper Bob Gerloff lived a few more years, his wish for an eternity at Tillamook could have been granted.

This article originally appeared in Mariners Weather Log, Winter 1990

© Elinor DeWire, 1990