Building Cape Decision

The temporary aid to navigation installed at Cape Decision while the lighthouse was constructed

An elevated tramway and footpath led from the lighthouse across a ravine to a landing dock on a sheltered cove. The dock was home to a boathouse, blacksmith shop, and hoist house, and a stiff-legged derrick, built on a separate concrete pier, was used to transfer supplies between boats in the cove and the dock.

The third-order Fresnel lens, mounted in the circular, helical-bar lantern room, was transferred from the Tenth Lighthouse District, and a 300-watt bulb was used inside it to produce two white flashes every fifteen seconds. Cape Decision was the first lighthouse in Alaska to be powered by electricity

Two Tyfon fog horns were mounted on the roof of the building, pointing south, and a Class B radiobeacon was placed on the rocks just seaward of the lighthouse.

The first attempt to light the waters surrounding Cape Decision was the installation of an unattended  acetylene lantern placed on the Spanish Islands, just off the southern end of Kuiu Island.   It was 1912 and Congress had  appropriated $115,000 for aids to navigation in Alaska.    Cape Decision was deemed  an important headland located on the north side of the comparatively narrow passage between Spanish Islands and Kuiu Island.  It was a treacherous part of the coastline where fog, tidal currents, off-lying rocks and heavy weather made for difficult and dangerous passage.   It didn't take long for mariners and the lighthouse service to deem the small lantern ineffective.

Construction of Cape Decision Lighthouse,  at an expected cost of $175,000,  was approved in 1927.   Congress appropriated $59,400 in July 1929 to start the project.   The first crews at Cape Decision constructed the temporary navigation aid and the construction camp where the crew would live for the next three years. Between September 1929 and the following July the site was leveled and camp buildings were erected.  The dock and tramway were also constructed as well as the derrick for hoisting materials and machinery.  The boathouse and all elevated walkways were complete before lighthouse construction began. 

For the next two years crews worked diligently -- building form-work, mixing and pouring concrete.   By July 1931, all structural work at the station had been completed, leaving mostly interior work. The reinforced concrete lighthouse, with a focal plane of ninety-six feet, was officially activated on March 15, 1932. By that time, $158,000 had been spent on the station, which was the last of the sixteen major lighthouses built in Alaska.

The concrete lighthouse features a central, square tower rising to a height of seventy-five feet, with a one-story structure wrapped about its base. The lighthouse provided quarters for three keepers and had a basement that housed generators for the light and fog signal, boilers for the heating plant, and cisterns for storing water for domestic use and for cooling the engines.