Built: 1857

Type: Conical

Height: 65 Feet

Status: Active

Location: Tatoosh Island/ Entrance to strait of Juan De Fuca

Lens: First Order Fresnel Lens / Present VRB-25

Keepers: First keeper Franci James / John cowan

Notes: Like most of the early west coast lighthouses, the construction plans called for a one-and-a-half story dwelling with a tower protruding through the roof. The tower of this lighthouse was taller than most of the Cape Cod style lighthouses, and was also large enough to house a first-order Fresnel lens. The lens, found to be too large for the Point Loma Lighthouse for which it was ordered, was first illuminated in the tower on December 28, 1857, two weeks after the New Dungeness Lighthouse.  
A fog signal building with a 12-inch steam whistle was built on the island in 1872.
The weather station on Tatoosh Island was closed in 1966, and its buildings were demolished. The light station was automated in 1977, and the island lost its last year-round inhabitants. A fourth-order lens replaced the first-order Fresnel lens sometime around 1930. Today, a Vega Rotating Beacon serves as the light source in the lantern room. In 1999, substantial maintenance and repair work was performed on the island's remaining structures. Windows and rotten beams were replaced, walls were plastered, smoke detectors were installed, and the fog signal was repaired. A fence was rebuilt around the cemetery, which contains the graves of two keeper's children, a reminder of the many people who once called Tatoosh Island home.