Featured Destination Story

Lime Kiln Lighthouse

Friday Harbor, WA

The Lime Kiln Light is a functioning navigational aid located on Lime Kiln Point overlooking Dead Man's Bay on the western side of San Juan Island, Washington. It guides ships through the Haro Straits and is part of Lime Kiln Point State Park, which offers tours during the summer months

The Lime Kiln Light was established in 1914 when acetylene lights were placed on Lime Kiln Point, a name derived from the lime kilns built there in the 1860s. It was the last major light established in Washington. The light was updated five years later with a 38-foot octagonal concrete tower rising from the fog signal building, a design that matched the Alki Point Light in Seattle. A fourth-order Fresnel lens was first exhibited from the new tower on June 30, 1919. Two keeper's houses and other structures also date from around this time.

Lime Kiln Lighthouse was the last lighthouse in Washington to be electrified also, well after World War II. The Bonneville Power Administration laid a power cable from Anacortes to the San Juan Islands in 1951, and power lines were then run to the lighthouse. The Fresnel lens was eventually replaced by a non-rotating drum lens with an electric light bulb, and two electric foghorns were installed. The Coast Guard automated the Lime Kiln Lighthouse in August 1962, using photoelectric cells to turn the light on at dusk and off during daylight hours. In 1998, the drum lens was replaced with a modern optic, flashing a white light once every 10 seconds. The beacon is visible for 17 miles.