Tourism is the top industry in the southern Oregon coastal city of Bandon, but a century ago, maritime shipping was king. Bandon was the main port between San Francisco and Portland, and in aid of that enterprise, the Coquille River Lighthouse was erected in 1896 on a rocky edge of what is now Bullards Beach State Park. Until it was decommissioned in 1939, the station’s beacon guided thousands of ships safely from the Pacific Ocean to the busy harbor.
On a recent cloudy afternoon, retired teacher and Bandon resident Rick Morris blinked hard while staring at the forlorn, 40-foot-tall octagonal tower, the city’s most famous landmark. One of nine surviving, federally funded lighthouses in the state, the Coquille River Light station needs repairs but is not endangered as is the battered, privately owned “Terrible Tilly” Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, overrun by 2,000-pound Steller sea lions and on Lighthouse Digest Magazine’s national “doomsday” list.
Engineers say the Bandon lighthouse is structurally sound, but the roof leaks, causing damage. Due to safety concerns, the lantern tower and its spiral staircase and wrap-round balcony are closed to the public. (Tours of the lower level start May 15.) There have been some fixes like the reconstruction of the brick chimney as well as patching, crack repair and painting of the exterior stucco since Oregon Parks and Recreation leased the facility in 2007 from its owner, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
One year, graffiti was erased from exterior walls. Over time, original features have been taken away. The lighthouse that mariners depended on to navigate a treacherous sand bar no longer has a forewarning foghorn or a brilliant beacon.
The idea of the lighthouse fading away, and of losing this part of Bandon’s history, worries Morris. The lone lighthouse is all that remains from a complex of buildings that included a light keeper’s residence.
“A charming little lighthouse that has become an orphan,” said Morris, pointing to the rusting stair railings, crumbling masonry and other deteriorating, missing or unsafe parts.
Morris, 76, calls the relic the lighthouse no one wanted. “I feel very protective of this lighthouse,” he said. “A lot of people are upset about its conditions. I look at it and say, ‘We can do better than this.’”
The cost for the engineer-recommended work on the lighthouse was estimated to be $900,000 in a 2021 report. Bullards Beach State Park Ranger Nick Schoeppner thinks present day costs would be closer to $1,575,000.
Schoeppner is hopeful, however, that a thorough rehabilitation that ensures the preservation of character-defining features while allowing new and continued use of the building, can be accomplished. It will just take years.
“We were able to keep the updated condition assessment alive during the pandemic’s reduction in services and the next phase is prepping construction documents, detailing in blueprints the actual work to be performed,” he said.
Funds for preparing the construction documents are on a list of projects being considered for the 2025-2027 Oregon State Parks’ budget. Schoeppner said the Bandon lighthouse is competing for funds with parks facing failing wastewater systems and landslides.
He said minor repairs like rain gutter seams and the handrail to the doorway can be accomplished piecemeal. A thorough restoration, however, will “require a lot of coordination and some push for funding,” he said.
For now, he’d be happy to just get electricity and heat in the lighthouse. With power, the interior temperature could be stabilized against nature’s humidity and cold, protecting completed projects as well as future improvements. Approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could come after a six- to nine-month review process.
Schoeppner is also having conversations with members of the Coquille Indian Tribe, whose ancestors were part of the wide-ranging, thousands-years-long commerce along the estuary of the Coquille River before the U.S. government forcibly relocated them, along with other coastal Native people, to land that would become the Grand Ronde and Siletz Reservations.
Coquille leaders ceded approximately 700,000 acres of ancestral homelands in exchange for protection and benefits in a treaty that the U.S. Congress never ratified, according to Jim Proehl of the Bandon Historical Society Museum. Bridgett Wheeler, who is the acting CEO of the Coquille Tribe, said many Coquille women remained on their land.
Coquille’s tribal historic preservation officer Sara E. Palmer said they have not requested any changes to the lighthouse or the park. “We appreciate our ongoing relationship with Oregon State Parks staff and the care they have for this special place,” she said.
Roger Straus, who first visited Bandon 25 years ago on his honeymoon, is also key to Schoeppner’s progress. Straus is president of the nonprofit preservation and education organization Coquille River Lighthouse Keepers Foundation. In the past, community and visitors’ donations to the foundation paid for lighthouse repairs such as installing double-pane windows. The Lighthouse Keepers can also apply for grants as they did to fund a project to seal the lighthouse’s lower level from rain and wind.
“The lighthouse is not going to fall down tomorrow, but it needs a full restoration,” Straus said. During his first tour of the lighthouse in the late 1990s, he was able to enter the tower watch room and cross a small rickety walkway. Now, the stairways are pulling out of the stucco wall.
“Everyone who is alive here only knows of this land with the lighthouse,” Straus said. “You can see it from everywhere. It’s a symbol of Bandon. It’s a logical beacon. People want to see it restored.”
Straus and others are waiting for Oregon State Parks to start a restoration project. And Schoeppner is pushing. “We all want to see meaningful restoration.” he said.
The Coquille River Light station is the youngest lighthouse in the state and a reliable survivor. The once functioning landmark established Bandon as a harbor town and served as a refuge while the community slowly recovered from the 1936 fire that destroyed the harbor and all but 16 of the 500 downtown buildings.
The jetty was hit by two schooners more than a century ago, and coastal storms continue to batter the building. And yet, Schoeppner points out the light from the lens was first illuminated on Feb. 29, 1896. “That was Leap Day 128 years ago,” Schoeppner said, then added, “and if you divide the leap year baby by four, she’s only 32.”
All of the Oregon coast’s nine surviving lighthouse stations have been added to the National Register of Historic Places, and with some exceptions, visitors are welcomed.
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