Cape Blanco Lighthouse
— — the oldest light still turning on this coast.
Not only on a wall.
“A white tower on a grassy headland 245 feet above the Pacific, west of Port Orford. The light first turned in 1870 and has not stopped since. Wind off the open ocean keeps the cape's grass short and the spruce inland of it bent east. Sheep graze the bluffs. Some days the fog comes in below the tower and the light reads as a single point above the cloud. — from the studio
Cape Blanco Lighthouse, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Cape Blanco Light stands on the headland of Cape Blanco in Curry County, Oregon, about nine miles north of Port Orford and four miles west of Highway 101. The cape is the westernmost point in Oregon and one of the westernmost in the contiguous United States. The tower sits 245 feet above the Pacific, was first lit in December 1870, and is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Oregon coast. The surrounding 1,880-acre Cape Blanco State Park is managed by Oregon Parks and Recreation and includes the Hughes House, a Victorian ranch home built in 1898.
The tower carries a first-order Fresnel lens, the largest size used in American lighthouse service, originally manufactured in Paris and installed in 1870. The light flashes white once every twenty seconds and is visible roughly twenty-six nautical miles offshore. The U.S. Coast Guard automated the station in 1980, and the lens itself remains in the tower today, maintained alongside the Coast Guard by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and volunteer keepers from Cape Blanco Heritage Society. The current is sourced through the Coast Guard rather than commercial power.
Cape Blanco State Park is open year-round; the lighthouse itself is open for guided tours April through October, Wednesday through Monday, with a small admission fee that supports the Cape Blanco Heritage Society. The road in from Highway 101 leads past Hughes House, a campground, and trails down to the beaches on either side of the cape. Wind on the headland routinely exceeds twenty knots; warm layers are sensible in any season. The nearest fuel and groceries are in Port Orford, nine miles south on Highway 101.