Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens

The marker is the center top of the five plaques.

In more that 50 years of service to the Community of Cambria, Bing was a leader who left his mark throughout our village.
A lasting legacy was his dedication to the preservation of this lighthouse lens from the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse.
Destined to be destroyed after abandonment by the Coast Guard in 1949, Bing together with Eddie Shaug, Guy Bond, and Roland Houtz was the leader in bringing the lens to Cambria for the enjoyment and education of all who come here.

Byron “Bing” Boisen 1908 – 2001

Friends of the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens

Cambria Lions Club • United States Coast Guard • Dora and Bob Lane • Rose and Ted Wadsley • Alex Lazarevich • Lou Ann and Bob Carter • Jerry McKinnon • Chris Crawford • Dorothy and Norman Plamer • Dorothy and Cecil Hawthorne • Jacqueline and John Tays • Cambria Rotary Club • Bil Mahoney • Vanna and Del Clegg • Susan and Roger Lyon • Mid-State Bank • Harry Jones • County of San Luis Obispo • General Electric • Anny Loveless • Louise and John Kemak • Edward P. Boyle • Lloyd Gracey • Lyn and Aaron Baker • John Condon • Frank Kimsey • Diana and Paul Turner • Richard Jorgensen • In Memory of Tony Williams, a Cambria Native • American Legion Post #432 • Kosakura and Associates • Katherine and Bill Avey • Thomas J. Alexander • Barbara A. Lee • Janet and Elvin Tinkham

Friends of the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens 1996

Cookie Crock Market Employees and Family • Ruth and Roy Hammond • Ray Siegele • Judy and Mike Levy • A-C Electric Company • Tom Alexander In Memoriam • Robert W. Huntington • Nickolas F. Deurloo II and Erik Helleskov • ‘Rich and Bobra” • Robert A. Blair • Dale and Mary Lee Cooper & Family • John Whitlock • Jodaco • David Whitlock • In Memory of Harold W. Clark and In Memory of ‘Jake” Compherrr Friends of the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens 1997

Cecil Hawthorne • Jim Taylor • Jack Serrand • Ted Wadsley • Eliot Kontoff

Friends of the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Lens 2003

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.