New Book: ‘The Lighthouse at Point San Luis’

November. On April 18, 1906, he wrote in his logbook, “5:30 A.M. Violent and continuous earthquake. San Francisco on fire. Is this the end of the world? Terrible seeing S.F. from here.”

Antonio Souza served with Captain Young for ten years, first as second assistant and then, after four years, as first assistant. The story about Souza recounts a falling-out between Keeper Young and his subordinate in early 1900, although ill will between the two men most likely started earlier. Against orders, Souza had sawed some branches off “two of the most important trees on this station,” disfiguring them, according to Young. Much worse, though, was Young’s claim that Souza had insulted and humiliated Young’s wife and, by extension, Young himself.

As the Keeper wrote to Uriel Sebree, the 12th district inspector, “We have always had the respect of the people about us. What must they think now, after such a scene, if I don’t report him and have him punished.”

The book also has stories about the other four principal keepers — William J. Smith, George Watters, Fred Saunders, and Bob Moorefield — and about the station’s longest serving assistant keeper Antonio J. Silva. Interspersed with these accounts are stories about the station’s fourth order Fresnel lens, the rescue of the only three survivors from the ill-fated Roanoke, the keepers’ children and the schools they attended, and how the keepers and their families celebrated the holidays.

The last chapter — the book’s longest chapter — recounts the memories of many Coast Guardsmen and their family members stationed at Point San Luis during the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s before the station was fully automated and left unmanned in December 1975.

The history of the lighthouse is also recounted through numerous photographs — some from the National Archives and others from private collections used by special permission, like a circa 1905 photo of Christmas dinner inside the keeper’s dwelling at Point Sur and a circa 1955 image of the no-longer-standing Pecho Adobe.

The book is available on Amazon and from the outlets like the Point San Luis Lighthouse, Morro Bay Maritime Museum, Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, the San Luis

Nonprofit

Obispo County History Center, and the South County Historical Society. Proceeds benefit the United States Lighthouse Society and the Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers, two non-profits dedicated to preserving lighthouse history.