Oscar and Annie Brown arrived at Browns Point on a United States Government boat on October 26, 1903, with their personal belongings, furniture, an upright piano, and a cow lowered to the beach by a sling, and for 36 years they tended the light and developed and nurtured a landscape that had originally consisted of a tideland and a lagoon. From 1903 until 1922, Oscar Brown's primary job was lighting the lantern at sundown and extinguishing it at sunrise, and during foggy periods he wound the clock mechanism that kept the bell ringing, demanding and exhausting work that was eased in 1922 when electricity came to Browns Point and a switch in the cottage turned on the lighthouse beacon while an electric mechanism rang the bell. Throughout his tenure, he also painted the lighthouse, cottage, boathouse, oil house, barn, hen house, and pump house, including the roofs, every three or four years. An avid gardener and farmer, he grew vegetables, maintained flower gardens of daffodils, tulips, Russian violets, peonies, irises, roses, seeded annuals, and shrubbery, planted and cared for an orchard of apples, pears, and cherries and multiple kinds of berry vines, maintained pastures of sweet clover and oats for his horse, goats, and Jersey cows, and raised chickens for eggs and meat. In his spare time, Oscar Brown, an accomplished musician on several instruments, joined other musicians in ensembles and taught cornet and piano to local children. When the Coast Guard assumed all lighthouse responsibilities from the United States Lighthouse Service in 1939, Oscar retired. Keepers who followed were Arthur (Shorty) Woods during most of the 1940s and Cyril Beaulieu during the 1950s. Lighthouse keeping at Browns Point ended when the light was automated in 1963. The Metropolitan Park District of Tacoma accepted responsibility for maintaining the cottage and grounds in a long-term lease with the United States Coast Guard, and after many years of leasing the cottage as a private family residence, in October 2000 the Points Northeast Historical Society became a partner with the Metropolitan Park District to assist in maintenance and restoration and to provide public access to the cottage and outer buildings. The cottage, along with the lighthouse, boathouse, oil house, and pump house, is on the National Registry of Historic Places.