Santa Cruz Light
The museum contains the current Santa Cruz Light, marking Point Santa Cruz on the west side of Santa Cruz Harbor. The light was allocated funding by congress in 1852, but disputes over the owner of the land meant that construction did not proceed until 1868. The original light was a one-story wooden structure, displaying a fifth-order fresnel lens. Erosion of Point Santa Cruz required the lighthouse to be moved 300 feet (91 m) in 1879.
Around 1909 (sources vary, possibly 1913) the lens was replaced with a fourth-order fresnel, for better visibility against the light of the city. The light was electrified in 1917, replaced by a wooden tower in 1941, and the original building demolished in 1948.
Read more about this topic: Santa Cruz Surfing Museum
Famous quotes containing the words santa and/or light:
“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”
—Shirley Temple Black (b. 1928)
“But seldom the laurel wreath is seen
Unmixed with pensive pansies dark;
There’s a light and a shadow on every man
Who at last attains his lifted mark—
Nursing through night the ethereal spark.
Elate he never can be;
He feels that spirits which glad had hailed his worth,
Sleep in oblivion.—The shark
Glides white through the phosphorus sea.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)