21 - Alcatraz Lighthouse

WAYSIDE LAYOUT: Cream colored, vertically oriented panel with a dark banner running across the top. The banner reads “Golden Gate National Recreation Area” on the left and the National Park Service logo on the right. The first column has text and an image and the second column has 2 images and the background image.  

FIRST COLUMN:  

TEXT: Alcatraz Lighthouse: Oldest beacon on the West Coast. Alcatraz’s original lighthouse (below) was lit in 1854, when California’s gold fields were drawing fortune-seekers from around the world. It was the first operating lighthouse on the West Coast. Today’s lighthouse, which replaced the original one in 1909, has been guiding vessels through the Golden Gate and around the Rock since then.  

A lighthouse keeper and two assistants lived on the island and tended the light until the U.S. Coast Guard automated it in 1963.  

DESCRIPTION: Black and white photograph of the first lighthouse with a man standing outside the light, leaning on the railing. The main building is shown below the light, with stairs leading to the entrance. Text on bottom reads, “Military Era, 1904.” 

CAPTION: Until the new prison building blocked Alcatraz’s first beacon, it could be seen 19 miles out to sea.  

SECOND COLUMN:  

DESCRIPTION: Black and white image of a later iteration of the lighthouse and its keepers’ quarters below it. Text on the bottom reads, “Penitentiary Era, 1955.” 

CAPTION: The keepers’ quarters beneath the tower were destroyed in a fire in 1970.  

DESCRIPTION: Faded into the background of the cream-colored panel is an image of the lighthouse from across the water, showing the island within the bay.