West Point Light, Historic lighthouse at Discovery Park, Seattle, United States
West Point Light is a square masonry tower with a gallery and lantern, standing 23 feet (7 m) tall on West Point, the western tip of Seattle on Puget Sound. The tower is painted white with a red lantern dome, and an attached wooden keeper's house and a 1906 fog-signal building stand beside it.
West Point Light began operating on November 15, 1881, as the first staffed light station on Puget Sound, built for $25,000 with a fourth-order Fresnel lens. A kerosene lamp lit it for 44 years until connection to Seattle's electric grid in 1926. It was automated in 1985, the last station in Washington to be so.
The Duwamish name Per-co-dus-chule described a point reaching far into the water. The lighthouse stands on this same West Point, the northern limit of Elliott Bay, where the name still matches the shape of the land.
The site sits within Discovery Park and requires a parking permit from the visitor center to reach the beach area. Vehicle restrictions maintain routes for emergency services while protecting the sensitive shoreline.
It was the last manned lighthouse station in Washington before automation in 1985 transformed it into a remotely monitored system. This shift marked the end of an era for lighthouse keepers along the Puget Sound coast.
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