Memories of a Lighthouse Engineer

After graduating as a civil engineer from Oregon State University and taking a Civil Service examination early in 1927, I entered the Lighthouse Service in San Francisco as a Junior Engineer. I was transferred to the Alaskan district as an assistant engineer about March of 1930. Captain Dibrill was superintendent. He had gained his title from the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Service, where he had been an officer and captain of one of their vessels. I do not know when he came to Alaska, but he had been there many years by the time I arrived. The assistant superintendent was Dwight Chase who later became Captain Chase, USCG, in charge of the Civil Engineering office at the Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington, D.C. I was the only true engineer in the office, as Chase was more of an administrator without much engineering background. I had no architectural training, but had considerable design experience using reinforced concrete, having designed the lighthouse depot building on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay