For more than 140 years, Yaquina Head Lighthouse has stood on this headland, and while the structure endured, changes in its lamp technology directly reshaped the surrounding community. From 1873 into the 1930s, the lighthouse used Funck's Hydraulic Float Lamp, an original lamp that stood 9 feet tall, burned lard oil, and, with a Fresnel lens, cast light 20 miles out to sea. Tending its oil-burning lamps required three lighthouse keepers, who hauled oil up the stairs, worked shifts through the night to keep the flame burning, and, because supplies were difficult to obtain at such a remote place, lived with their families in a community that maintained a garden and raised livestock to help meet its needs. In the 1930s, the lighthouse changed to an electric light bulb, reducing maintenance to two keepers, and a smaller home for one family replaced the original two-story dwelling. Improved roads allowed keepers to drive to Newport for groceries, ending the need to keep a garden and livestock. In 1966, the U.S. Coast Guard automated the lighthouse with a battery backup system, a spare bulb switching device, and an electronic modem to report if the light stopped blinking. With no duties remaining, the keepers moved away, the houses were boarded up, and the dwellings and other structures were removed in 1984. In 2005, the Bureau of Land Management and its partners began restoring the lighthouse tower and oil house from top to bottom, returning the exterior and interior to the condition and appearance of the 1873 lighthouse. Today, Yaquina Head is a place of daily change as visitors arrive to experience this historic lighthouse.