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| Lost Lighthouse Surfaces |
Historians believe that the 30-foot tall lighthouse that had protected Wellfleet Harbor starting in 1881 had been taken down and destroyed in 1925. To their amazement, they found out this week that it was still standing upright and in use, thousands of miles across the country on the California coast.
"The story has always been that the little 30-foot lighthouse in Wellfleet was taken down and destroyed," Jim Walker, chairman of the Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation, told the Cape Cod Times. "Here were are 80 some odd years later and it's been discovered. I think it's fantastic that it's not lost and gone."
Last year, lighthouse researchers uncovered the origins of the cast-iron tower in California and Colleen MacNeney reported the story in this month's issue of Lighthouse Digest. MacNeney called it her most exciting discovery.
The lighthouse is now located at Point Montara at the southern end of San Francisco Bay but no documentation exists to show how it was moved across the country to end up there. It is speculated that, because the lighthouse is metal, it could have been disassembled bolt by bolt and then the resulting pieces could be transported by rail.
Correspondence has been found that proves the lighthouse was moved by the Coast Guard from Wellfleet to Yerba Buena, California, eventually moving to Point Montara.
Besides it's new found fame as a found piece of history, the lighthouse was also the first lighthouse to have a female lighthouse keeper. Sarah Atwood worked the lighthouse from 1876 to 1891 following the death of her husband, the previous lighthouse keeper.
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