Be a Keeper of the Light
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum has been designated by the U.S. Coast Guard to be the future home of the Lighthouse Lens.
Point Conception is the western gate to the Santa Barbara Channel. Native American Chumash consider the site a sacred link to their cultural past.
The Point Conception First Order Fresnel Lens has stood watch for nearly 160 years, guiding ships safely around the “Cape Horn of the Pacific.” The Point Conception lens was designed and built in Paris, France in 1854, using refracted prisms designed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel. The lens was first exhibited on February 1, 1856. Because of persistent heavy fog at higher elevation, a second lighthouse was built on a lower bluff, and the lens was moved in June 1882. While the lens saw many vessels meet their ultimate fate in this “graveyard” of the Central Coast, the light also saved and provided safer passage to thousands of vessels over the years.
The lens, decommissioned in 2000, has been designated by the United States Coast Guard to be on permanent loan to the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, where it can be viewed by the public for the first time. “In order to preserve the lens for future interpretation and enjoyment by the general public,” says United States Coast Guard Curator Arlyn Danielson,…“made available to the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum for education, interpretation, and preservation purposes.” She adds that the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum was chosen because it has “demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm to interpret the lens form a local, regional, and national perspective…SBMM also has the appropriate staff resources to care for and preserve this lens for future generations.”
* Arlyn Danielson quotes from the September 2012 Lighthouse Digest article by Bill Edwards
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum needs your support to bring this important local artifact, and registered National Landmark, to the general public. SBMM Board Member Roger Chrisman, and his wife Sarah, have made a $50,000 matching gift towards installation of this exhibit. To find out how you can support this exhibit, and help us preserve an important piece of national maritime history, please contact Executive Director Greg Gorga at (805) 962-8404, ext. 103, or by email at ggorga@sbmm.org. You can also donate online—here. All major gifts will be recognized in the exhibit display, and in materials relating to this exhibit.
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by Earl Richmond
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum bears the cost in disassembling, transporting, cleaning and reassembling the lens. The Fresnel Lens Exhibit will greatly benefit the Community, as well as the Museum. We are asking for your support to help us meet our goal to serve the region by preserving this important piece of our national maritime history.
You can help bring this National Treasure to Santa Barbara.
We Need Your Support! To Donate, click here.
