On the western shore of Penobscot Bay, Owl's Head was long associated with a Native American legend that saw the head of an owl in the rocky cliff called Ko-ko-hass-want'ep-ek. The Owl's Head Lighthouse has guided mariners safely in and out of port since 1825, when increased shipping activity and dangers near the headland led Congress to appropriate $4,000 to buy land and build a light station there. During the summer of 1825, Jeremiah Berry, Captain Ballard Green, and Major Robert Foster received the contract to construct the station, and on the night of September 10, 1825, Keeper Isaac Sterns first lighted the beacon. A stone keeper's dwelling erected in 1825 was replaced in 1854 by the present wooden cottage, and in 1906 a covered walkway connected the dwelling to the tower until it was dismantled about 1943. In 1855, as whale oil became expensive, the government adopted kerosene for lighthouse illumination and built an oil-house at a safe distance from other structures; after electrification in 1925, it held a backup generator and later housed the automatic fog detector. A boathouse built in 1894 sheltered a 13-foot dory that the keeper hauled up a slip with a hand winch, and in 1897 a boat car was added to ease its return; the station later received a peapod, and by September 8, 1950, the boathouse was reported absent. To warn mariners in fog, a hand-operated bell was installed in 1869, probably followed in the 1870's by a tide water bell system activated by tidal and wave action, with later bell towers and a siren preceding today's foghorn at the base of the tower and a backup horn on the lantern deck. The light received a Fresnel lens in 1856, was electrified in 1925, and was automated in 1989.