New Dungeness Light, Brick lighthouse at Dungeness Spit, Washington, United States.
New Dungeness Light is a lighthouse on Dungeness Spit, a 1½-story stone duplex of greyish-yellow sandstone with a conical brick tower rising from its pitched roof. The tower was originally 100 feet (30 m) tall, painted white on the lower half and dark blue on the upper half, with a bright red lantern room. In 1927 the upper 9 metres were removed, leaving the present 63-foot (19 m) tower, which carries the lantern room taken from the decommissioned Admiralty Head lighthouse.
The light was first lit on 14 December 1857, the second lighthouse in Washington Territory after Cape Disappointment. Congress had allocated $39,000 in 1854 for lights on Tatoosh Island and Dungeness Spit. Built to Ammi B. Young's design as a stone duplex with a 28-metre brick tower, it was damaged by an 1861 earthquake; in 1927 the cracked upper section was removed, leaving the tower at 19 metres.
The lighthouse takes its name from Dungeness Spit, a natural formation shaped by deposits from the Dungeness River. Today, local volunteers care for the station and share its maritime heritage with visitors who make the journey.
The lighthouse is reached by walking the length of Dungeness Spit from the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge entrance; the route is long and exposed, so carry water and check tide tables before setting out. Volunteers of the New Dungeness Light Station Association staff the station daily and offer tours between 9 AM and 5 PM.
The station's first keeper, Henry Blake, is remembered in the name of a U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender, the WLM-563 Henry Blake, based in Everett, Washington. Since September 1994, association volunteers have staffed the station around the clock, every day of the year.
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