Discovery Park continues to give me new things to see. Just off a very busy thoroughfare is this jewel of a park. Take the trail down to the beach and you will find not just shoreline but also an 1881 Lighthouse. These first three photos show you how it appears amidst the driftwood as you walk north along the beach.

This little jewel takes one back in time to a place where Seattle was the middle of nowhere and most everything came by ship.

It is built at the north end of Puget Sound’s Elliott Bay to guide vessels to Seattle and further down the sound. It cost us only 25 thousand dollars in its day. Seems like a bargain but that is apx 610 thousand in today’s money.

At only 25 feet it was the first manned lighthouse on the sound. It used a Fresnel Lens lit with kerosene  lamp until it was electrified in 1926. In 1985 it was the last lighthouse in the area to be automated.

Now it is a National Register of Historic Place (designated in 1977). The city of Seattle Parks gained custody of the buildings in 2004 and completed a restoration in the last 10 years.

I leave you with one last photo of this little lighthouse that does so much. It is looking south with a sailboat rounding the point.