Beavertail Light was fueled by whale oil for many decades, though whale oil was smoky, difficult to light in cold temperatures, uneven in quality, and consumed at a rate of twenty to thirty gallons a month in early dim lights. In the early 1800s, Newport inventor David Melville developed a method of making flammable gas from coal tar and used it to light Beavertail Light in an 1817 experiment, but the powerful whale oil industry blocked adoption of coal gas. About 50 years later, colza oil made from the seed of a type of turnip replaced whale oil, and later mineral oil and then kerosene were used. In 1905, the U.S. Lighthouse Board built the oil storage building to hold fuel oil for lamps in the tower and houses, as well as fuel for the standby generator and the engine-driven air compressor in the fog signal building. The oil storage building was restored in 2010 by volunteers of the Beavertail Lighthouse Museum Association with support from a grant from the Newport Restoration Foundation.