Standing at the mouth of the Coquille River near Bandon, Oregon, the Coquille River Lighthouse has watched over this rugged stretch of Pacific coastline for more than a century. Originally known as the Bandon Light, it was commissioned in 1895 and first illuminated on February 29, 1896. Its purpose was an important one: guide ships safely past the shifting sandbars at the entrance to the Coquille River and into Bandon’s harbor. It was also the last government lighthouse constructed along the Oregon coast.
The lighthouse was built on Rackliff Rock, with a brick tower and adjoining fog-signal building covered in stucco. A fourth-order Fresnel lens produced the light, while a powerful fog trumpet warned ships when the Oregon coast disappeared behind fog and storms. Life here could be harsh. Windblown sand sometimes piled around the keepers’ buildings, winter storms battered the station, and the lighthouse’s isolated location made even ordinary daily tasks more difficult.
Today the Coquille River Lighthouse remains one of Bandon’s most recognizable landmarks. Surrounded by rock, driftwood, dunes and the restless waters of the Pacific, it seems especially at home beneath the heavy clouds and subdued light of the Oregon coast. In the black and white of this photograph, the lighthouse feels less like a tourist attraction and more like what it once was—a solitary working structure built to stand against fog, wind and ocean, helping mariners find their way home.