Qualla: Old Point Loma Lighthouse

Old Point Loma Lighthouse: Introduction

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ctorbann, CC BY-SA 3.0. The lighthouse commission built it high, 462 feet above sea level on the spine of Point Loma, reasoning that a light placed high would be seen far. The reasoning was sound. The execution worked, for a while. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse was first illuminated on November 15, 1855, and for three decades it guided ships into San Diego Bay. Then the commission discovered the problem with building high on a coastal promontory: clouds and fog frequently fill in at exactly the altitude where the lighthouse stood, hiding the light from the ships below that needed to see it. In 1891, the lighthouse was deactivated and replaced by a new one 88 feet above sea level, down at the water's edge. The old lighthouse has been a museum ever since.

Image: Ctorbann | CC BY-SA 3.0

Old Point Loma Lighthouse: First Light on the Pacific

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ctorbann, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse was one of eight lighthouses built simultaneously along the Pacific Coast under an 1850 congressional appropriation — part of the federal effort to provide navigational infrastructure for the surge of maritime traffic following the Gold Rush and Cali...

Image: Ctorbann | CC BY-SA 3.0

Old Point Loma Lighthouse: Robert Israel's Eighteen Years

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ben Pollard from Bristol, CT, CC BY-SA 2.0. The lighthouse's most significant keeper was Robert Israel, who served from 1873 to 1891 — nearly the entire remaining active life of the lighthouse. Israel maintained the light through the routine and isolation that characterized lighthouse service in the nineteenth century: tri...

Image: Ben Pollard from Bristol, CT | CC BY-SA 2.0

Old Point Loma Lighthouse: The Fog Problem

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Baron from Palo Alto, California, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. The decommissioning of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse illustrates a principle learned at considerable cost at multiple American lighthouse stations: elevation is not simply good for coastal navigation. A light that sits above the prevailing fog layer is invisible to ships below. T...

Image: David Baron from Palo Alto, California, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Old Point Loma Lighthouse: Cabrillo National Monument

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.5. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse now sits within Cabrillo National Monument, the National Park Service unit that commemorates Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo's 1542 European discovery of the West Coast. The lighthouse is one of the monument's primary visitor attractions, preserved and inter...

Image: CC BY-SA 2.5