East Brother Island Lighthouse

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**East Brother Island Lighthouse**
Location:	Off Point San Pablo, San Francisco Bay
Year first constructed:	1874
Automated:	1969
Tower shape:	Square buff colored wood tower attached to keeper’s house a two story Victorian placed on a blasted away 1-acre rock. It also had an assistant keeper’s house, equipment building, cistern, and water tank. The water cistern was also blasted to a depth of 30 feet and is capable of holding 50,000 gallons of rain water.
Height:	48 feet with height of focal plane 61 feet
Original lens:	fourth order Fresnel lens
Current lens:	FA 251

East Brother Island Light is a lighthouse located on East Brother Island at the tip of Point San Pablo in Richmond, California. It marks the entrance to San Pablo Bay from San Francisco Bay.

The lighthouse was opened in 1874 and automated in 1969. The former keeper's house began operating as a bed and breakfast in 1980 and offers guests an expensive and elegant getaway. Day visitors may come to the island for free to hang out and enjoy the vistas, but must provide their own transportation.

[edit] History

From Coast Guard web site:

U.S. Lighthouse Service ran the lighthouse operation until 1939, when the U.S. Coast Guard took over the Lighthouse Service.
Large families occupied the lighthouse, having to light the original lens wick filled with whale oil; on many foggy nights, they’d have to fire up the steam boilers to drive the foghorns, hauling coal up the long ramp from the boat.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
Keepers: Samuel M. Farran (1874-1880), Charles F. Winsor (1880-1887), P.J. Quinlan (1887-1894), John O. Stenmark (1894-1914), John P. Kofod (1914-1921), Herbert Luff (1921), J. Dunn (1921-1922), Williard Miller (1922-1942), J.S. McGrath (1942-1944), E.P. Perry (1944-?), Mickey Edward Thurman (Coast Guard, c. 1944-1947); First Assistants: John Cawley (1874-1881), Joseph M. Page (1881-1883), Albert Tippett (1883-1886), Charles A. Paulson (1886-1888), Charles McCarthy (1889-1890), Martin Haave (1890-1893), James Anderson (1893-1901), Oscar Sellman (1901), Charles A. Paulson (1901-1902), John W. Astrom (1902-?), Andrew Szarnecker (1908-?), C.E. Clark (1909-1918), E.C. Easton (1918), D. O. Kinyon (1918-?), W. Monette (1919-?), A.H. Joost (1921), T.F. Brown (1921-?), F.L. Pike (1922-1926), Roy L. Murphy (1926-1928), Frederick S. Cobb (1928-1930), J.H. Sylvia (1930), W.J. Atkins (1931-1936), Earl Snodgrass (1936-1943), Frank Dacosta (1943-?); Second Assistants: F. Moran (1874-?), James Rankin (c. 1878), William McCarthy (1878-1880)