Photo: Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens Informational Sign

Photographer: James King
Taken: January 4, 2015
Caption: Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens Informational Sign
Additional Description: Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens
This First Order Fresnel Lens is among the largest of a type invented in 1823 by French physicist and Augustin Fresnel (frey-NEL).
Our lens was made in Paris by Henry Le Paute in 1872. The delicate glass pieces were shipped around Cape Horn in southern Chile, a journey of several months over rough seas.
This lens, which is ten feet tall (305cm) and weighs several tons, was assembled and installed in the Piedras Blancas Light Tower in 1874, beginning service in February 1875.
Hundreds of glass prisms concentrated light into a thin beam that could be seen more than 20 nautical miles (32km) in clear weather. Oil lanterns were used until electricity became available here in the 1920s.
Fresnel lenses rotated, flashing light in a unique pattern called a characteristic that identified each lighthouse to ships at sea.
Fresnel lenses became widely used in lighthouses along the sea coasts of Europe and North America, and are still used today in traffic lights, projectors and plastic magnifying sheets.
The U.S. Coast Guard removed the lens from the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse lantern room in 1949 after an earthquake damaged the light tower.
The lens was slated for destruction, but was saved by the Cambria Lions Club.
Lions Club members and community volunteers contributed their labor and financial support to relocate and reconstruct the lens – refinishing its brass fittings, polishing the glass prisms, retooling the machinery, repainting the housing and constructing the lantern room.
Submitted: March 18, 2015, by James King of San Miguel, California.
Database Locator Identification Number: p303170
File Size: 4.249 Megabytes

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