Santa Barbara Lighthouse

Shortly after gold was discovered in California, the federal government was pressed to construct suitable aids to navigation along the west coast to safeguard maritime commerce. The initial appropriation for west coast lighthouses was passed in the fall of 1850. It authorized the construction of six stations in California and one in the Washington Territory. The next year Humboldt Bay, CA, was added to the initial list. The contract for the construction of those stations was awarded to the firm of Gibbons and Kelly of Baltimore, MD which built them between 1854 and 1856.