Willapa Bay Light

Willapa Bay Light stood at the north side of the entrance to Willapa Bay on Washington’s coast, originally under the bay’s earlier name, Shoalwater Bay. One of the state’s earliest lighthouses, it was difficult to supply and went dark from 1859 to 1861. A nearby lifesaving station later tied it to efforts to aid ships and wrecks along this hazardous shoreline. After the bay was renamed in 1889, the light took the new name, but severe erosion steadily undermined the cape beneath it. Abandoned in 1938, it was dynamited in 1940 as collapse threatened. Erosion also destroyed the lifesaving station and part of nearby North Cove.

Washington · United States