Countywide : Park Service to Show Lens of Lighthouse

A rotating crystal-and-brass lens disassembled and carefully removed from the Anacapa Island lighthouse this summer should be on display for visitors within three weeks, said the man putting the nine-foot formation back together.

The U.S. Coast Guard turned over the European-made Fresnel lens to the Channel Islands National Park Service in August, replacing it with modern technology. The lens had been difficult to service, but the difference in appearance between old and new is “like comparing a piece of finely cut crystal to a beer can,” said Steve James, the island’s maintenance mechanic.

The old lens will be displayed at the Anacapa Island visitors’ center in a room James wants to furnish with a picture of the sea to give the illusion of being in a lighthouse, he said.

James, who is nearly finished fitting the pieces back together, has spent the past few months stripping black paint from the brass and bronze castings. The Coast Guard applied the paint in the mid-1960s when it became inconvenient to routinely polish the lens, he said.

The Anacapa lighthouse, the only one on the Channel Islands, has allowed sailors to safely navigate up and down the Santa Barbara Channel for 88 years. By rotating its panels around a 1,000-watt light bulb, the lens--added to the lighthouse in 1938--emitted three white flashes every 60 seconds a distance of about 20 miles. It has been replaced by a parabolic reflector, which resembles two barrels emitting light, James said.

Four Park Service workers disassembled the lens in late August, carrying parts down the lighthouse’s spiral staircase and using a crane to lower other pieces from the tower’s catwalk. The Coast Guard reports that this is the first time that workers have successfully disassembled this type of lens without shattering the glass, James said.

Only eight Fresnel lenses continue to be used in California’s 25 functioning lighthouses, including one at Port Hueneme, said Helen Denny, spokeswoman for the Coast Guard’s Aids to Navigation and Waterways Management division.