Lighthouse Digest Scores Journalistic Scoop With Lost Lighthouse Story

Lighthouse Digest scored a journalistic scoop with our exclusive story about a Cape Cod lighthouse, which was believed to have been destroyed in the early 1900’s, having been found, nearly 3,000 miles away from its original location on the Atlantic Ocean, now standing on the California coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Until now everyone believed Cape Cod’s, Mayos Beach Lighthouse in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, had been demolished when the light station was discontinued and the keeper’s house was sold at auction in the early 1900’s. In fact that’s what is written in every book and web site about Cape Cod lighthouses.

However, in the late 1920’s, the government actually moved the lighthouse from Cape Cod to Point Montara, California, where it would replace the original wooden Point Montara Lighthouse that was being demolished.

The facts were first discovered a number of months ago by Colleen MacNeney and her parents, Bob and Sandra Shanklin, while researching lighthouses at the Coast Guard historian’s office in Washington for Lighthouse Digest magazine. The Shanklins, known as "The Lighthouse People," have photographed every lighthouse in the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

However, before these lighthouse historians and Lighthouse Digest could make the story public, they needed to do some detective work to obtain full proof that their research was 100% correct. This required MacNeney’s time in digging through hundreds of old documents and records at the National Archives, many of them hand-written.

Exactly how the lighthouse was moved to California is still unclear. Tim Harrison, editor and publisher of Lighthouse Digest, said, "From the old photo we published in our magazine of the former Mayos Beach Lighthouse, sitting at what we believe to be the Lighthouse Depot in Yerba Buena, CA, before it was moved again to Point Montara, it is highly likely that the tower was shipped intact on board a lighthouse tender.

Harrison went on to say, "Here at Lighthouse Digest we keep rediscovering lighthouse history that was otherwise thought to have been lost, but this is a much bigger find than we could ever have imagined. We generally concentrate our efforts in locating photographs of lighthouse keepers and their families and the memories to go with those photographs."

"What we’d really like to find now are some photographs of the lighthouse being moved," Harrison said. He continued by saying that old photographs and historical records arrive in his office every week. Some they search out and other photos and documents just arrive in the mail when people find out that they are trying to save this history and then write about it. "The goal is to save this history for future generations," said Harrison.

The group that runs the Point Montara Lighthouse in California as a youth hostel was unaware, until now, that their lighthouse once stood on the other coast of the United States.

Sandra Shanklin said, "This has to be the furthest a lighthouse has been moved in United States history."

Harrison agreed, saying, that many lighthouses have been moved, but generally they were moved back from an eroding shoreline and stayed in same general location. "However," he said, "There are a number of lighthouses that have been moved a great distance. For example, Michigan’s South Fox Island Lighthouse was moved in 1934 from where it originally stood in Georgia."

Harrison said, "We are proud of the fact that Lighthouse Digest was the first publication in the world to report the story and honored that the big media outlets like AP, CNN, FOX News and many newspapers gave our historic find such great coverage.

However, the full story, with rare photographs, is only available in the print edition of the June issue of the Maine based Lighthouse Digest. For more information or to subscribe to Lighthouse Digest you can visit their web site at http://www.LighthouseDigest.net or call them toll free at 1-800-668-7737. Story ideas, comments and photographs can be emailed to editor@LighthouseDigest.com.