Scotch Cap Light

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Scotch Cap Light
Location:	Unimak Island, Alaska
Year first constructed:	1903
Automated:	1971
Original lens:	Third order Fresnel lens
Characteristic:	White flash every 6 s

The Scotch Cap Light is a lighthouse located on the southwest corner of Unimak Island in Alaska. It was the first station established on the outside coast of Alaska.

[edit] History

The Scotch Cap Light was built in 1903. The original lighthouse was a 45 foot wood tower on an octagonal wood building. According to the Coast Guard Historians Office, the lighthouse was witness to several ship wrecks. In 1909, the cannery supply ship Columbia wrecked. The 194 crew members were guests of the keepers for two weeks before a rescue ship could remove them. In 1930, the Japanese freighter Koshun Maru became lost in a snowstorm and beached near the light. In 1942, the Russian freighter Turksib wrecked near the station. The 60 survivors lived at the station for several weeks because rough seas prevented a rescue ship from reaching the station.

In 1940, a new concrete reinforced lighthouse and fog-signal building was erected near the site of the original lighthouse. In 1945 Anthony Petit was assigned the lighthouse keeper to the Scotch Cap Light as the head of a five-man crew. All of the men were killed on April 1, 1946 when a massive tsunami struck the station, destroying it. The United States Coast Guard has named a buoy tender USCGC Anthony Petit based in Ketchikan, Alaska in his honor.

A temporary unwatched light was established in 1946. The new permanent structure was completed in the early 1950's and the temporary light was discontinued. The lighthouse was automated in 1971. A skeletal tower replaced the 1950 structure and the fog signal was discontinued.