Table Bluff Light, Wooden lighthouse in Humboldt County, California.
Table Bluff Light is a wooden lighthouse in Humboldt County, California, with a simple square tower painted white and topped with a black lantern chamber. The structure stands roughly 11 meters tall and features decorative trim around its upper section.
The lighthouse was built in 1892 to replace the earlier Humboldt Harbor Light facility. It used a fourth-order Fresnel lens to guide ships safely into Humboldt Bay and surrounding waters.
The tower now stands at Woodley Island Marina in Eureka, cut in two and moved there in 1987; the lens inside it is not the original. Its fourth-order Fresnel lens went to the Old Point Loma Light in San Diego, and a 2½-order lens was shipped to the Smithsonian. The station was automated in 1953, when the fog signal was discontinued.
The tower was cut in two and moved to Woodley Island Marina in Eureka in 1987, so it now stands among the marina docks rather than on Table Bluff. The present lens is not the original. Look for the tower while walking the Eureka waterfront.
During World War II, the US Navy expanded the lighthouse grounds for military coastal operations and beach patrols. This overlooked chapter of the site shows how civilian maritime structures became part of wartime coastal defense.
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