Old-Time Lighthouses Face Threats, Neglect

HECETA HEAD, Ore., Jan. 20, 2007 — -- For 114 years, the lighthouse on this rocky point overlooking the turbulent Pacific Ocean has guided mariners to safety. Now, due to global positioning satellites and other modern navigational aids, the Heceta Head lighthouse is mainly a tourist attraction. The adjacent keeper's house has been turned into a successful bed-and-breakfast operation.

Other light stations are not so fortunate.

Farther down the coast, not far from Coos Bay, the Cape Arago lighthouse had its light extinguished a year ago. A padlocked chain link fence keeps the curious and looters from entering the property. A rickety, dilapidated old wooden bridge that crosses a ravine and leads to the facility was long ago deemed too dangerous for pedestrians.

Cape Arago is threatened with extinction. Unlike other lighthouse properties, no one has stepped up to save it.

Lighthouses on the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, West Coast and Great Lakes have attracted history buffs for years. Now, given their advancing age, preservation of these icons of America's coastal landscape must be addressed or they could be lost forever.

With that in mind, ABC News recently interviewed Wayne Wheeler of the U.S. Lighthouse Society. Wheeler is the retired president of the society and an acknowledged expert. He spent 23 years with the Coast Guard in the "aids to navigation" field.

No one knows these magnificent structures and their history better than Wheeler. Here are the highlights of the interview.

Why is it important to "save" lighthouses?

It's important to save lighthouses as one of the only [and most prolific] examples of our maritime past. Most of the tall ships and dockside structures have passed over the horizon. Our country was built on martime, it expanded with shipping into the Great Lakes down the East Coast cross the Gulf of Mexico and up the West Coast. Lighthouses served this expansion and the shipping by lighting the way around dangerous obstructions and into safe harbor. It is amazing to me how little of our maritime history is recounted in schools. Foundations provide funds for bricks and mortar for projects, but very little for lighthouses.