Discovery Park Lighthouse
by Sylvia Cook
Title
Discovery Park Lighthouse
Artist
Sylvia Cook
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Sunset at the Discovery Park Lighthouse in Seattle Washington.
Discovery Park is a 534 acres park on the shores of Puget Sound in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It is the city's largest public park and contains 11.81 miles of walking trails. United Indians of All Tribes' Daybreak Star Cultural Center is within the park's boundaries. A lighthouse is located on West Point, the westernmost point of the park and the entire city of Seattle.
The park is one of the best places in the city to view wildlife, especially birds and marine mammals. The Seattle Audubon Society has compiled a checklist of 270 species of birds seen in the park and nearby waters.
The West Point Light, also known as the Discovery Park Lighthouse, is a 23-foot-high lighthouse on Seattle, Washington's West Point which juts into Puget Sound and marks the northern extent of Elliott Bay. Opening on November 15, 1881, and featuring a fourth-order Fresnel lens, it was the first manned light station on Puget Sound and cost $25,000 to build ($590 thousand in today dollars). It was illuminated with a kerosene lamp for its first 44 years, until it was attached to Seattle's electric grid in 1926.
The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It became automated in 1985, the last station in Washington to do so.
Under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, in early 2003, Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation applied to the United States Department of the Interior to take custody of the lighthouse from the United States Coast Guard and incorporate it into Discovery Park. Nineteen groups applied, including Nick Korstad, former owner of Virginia's Wolf Trap Lighthouse. The city was granted the property in October 2004 after many debates.
Uploaded
March 17th, 2012
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