Point Montara Light stands on the southern approach to San Francisco Bay and has guided this prominent San Mateo coast since a light station was established in 1875. The station’s original kerosene lantern was replaced in 1912 by a fourth-order Fresnel lens. Its present tower began as the Mayo Beach Lighthouse in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, erected in 1881, then was moved to Yerba Buena in 1925 and rebuilt at Point Montara in 1928. Staffed for decades with light, fog signal, and keeper housing, it was automated in 1970. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, the site also includes a youth hostel and overlooks protected coastal waters.

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