Posted on 06/04/2008 10:50:49 AM PDT by decimon
WELLFLEET — Local historians for decades thought the 30-foot tall lighthouse that once overlooked Wellfleet Harbor had been taken down and destroyed in 1925.
Turns out, it had just been moved to the California coast.
The fate of the cast-iron tower was uncovered last year by lighthouse researchers and reported by Colleen MacNeney in this month's edition of Lighthouse Digest.
MacNeney told the Cape Cod Times in Wednesday's edition it was her most exciting discovery.
Wellfleet historian Helen Purcell says the discovery of the lighthouse at Point Montara at the southern end of San Francisco Bay was a genuine shock.
MacNeney says she discovered correspondence that proved the lighthouse, first erected in 1881, had been moved by the Coast Guard from Wellfleet to Yerba Buena, Calif., and eventually to Point Montara.
There is no known documentation explaining how it was moved across the country, MacNeney said.
But Jim Walker, chairman of the Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation, speculates that because it is metal, it could have been disassembled bolt by bolt, with the pieces then transported by rail.
The lighthouse is still used as a navigational aid and a hostel.
A Nicola Tesla experiment gone wrong?
I hate when those lighthouses just pick up and leave....
You can bet your booties that 100’s of folks have known this for years.
Well I guess so long as we haven’t lost track of the Washington Monument or the Statue of Liberty we’re not doing too badly...... :^)
California stole Minneapolis’ basketball team too.
Borrowed for the Philadelphia Experiment?
Somebody’s library card is gonna be seriously dinged.
Lots of photos of the Point Montara lighthouse can be found on google. Pretty pictures.
That must be after the move as it’s clearly facing west.
Did Jacob tell Ben to move it?
And the Giants, Dodgers, Rams, A's, Kings (Sacramento) and maybe some others.
Here in VT, a small lighthouse was relocated a few miles to a museum.
Heck, I understand that in the Chesapeake Bay, they have movable lighthouses. They float the things into place in the Spring, and screw them into the mud. The process is reversed in the Fall, before Winter sets in, and along with destructive ice.
FWIW, I believe Michigan is the state with the most number of lighthouses.
Not quite. Jacob told John, who told Ben...
You are right! Jacob told John who told Ben.
Do you think Richard is actually Jacob?
Possibly, but I could get a headache from speculating about that.
Here at Grand Haven, MI we have *two* lighthouses. Maybe someone else is missing one?
Well, hell, You shoulda just asked! If’n I’d known you were lookin’ fo’ it, I woulda told ya where it gone. ;-)
Jacob was the first one to find the island and he told John...Ben wants to see Jacob..but can’t
It is. But you assumed the picture was taken in the northern hemisphere, and not at some interim location in Oz...
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