Alcatraz Island Light
Alcatraz Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse in California, United States, on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, California. It the southern end of the island near the entrance to the prison. The first light house on the island was commissioned in 1854, and served the bay during its time as a Citadel and military prison. It was replaced by a taller 95 feet (29 m) above mean sea level ) concrete tower built in 1909 by Roberts, Bruce and Ray Jones, to the south of the original one which was demolished after it was damaged due to earthquake in 1906. The automation of the lighthouse with a modern beacon took place in 1963, the year Alcatraz closed as the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. It is the oldest light station on the U.S. West Coast with a modern beacon and is part of the museum on the island. Although when viewed from afar it easily looks the tallest structure on Alcatraz, it is actually shorter than the Alcatraz Water Tower, but as it lies on higher ground it looks much taller.
Read more about Alcatraz Island Light: History, Structural Details, Keepers, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words island and/or light:
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Oh! for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heav’nly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)