If the old lighthouse could talk …
It’s an odd thing to ponder, perhaps — and certainly not the first place a person’s mind goes when visiting the small waterfront park that juts out into the mouth of Commencement Bay on the other side of the city — but Jim Harnish can’t help himself. It’s how the 81-year-old ticks.
“This is the welcoming beacon for maritime traffic into the port,” Harnish said this week of the historic Browns Point Lighthouse, which dates back to a lantern first placed on a pole in 1887 and now serves as the centerpiece of the 4-acre park that bears its name.
“This is the only lighthouse in Pierce County, and it’s unique,” Harnish said with conviction, convinced the tower would have stories to tell, cataloging the lives of early light keepers who kept it running at the turn of the 20th century and the voyages of the massive ships it still welcomes to the Port of Tacoma today.
There’s just one problem. The lighthouse — a squared Art Deco tower constructed in 1933 — “looks terrible,” Harnish said. Although a functioning LED light still shines atop it, over the years the landmark has slipped into neglect and disrepair. Plywood now covers the windows, lead paint chips off its facade and the lantern encasement that once crowned the 34-foot-tall tower disappeared long ago.
Harnish serves as vice president of the Points NE Historical Society and said restoring the lighthouse to its former glory has long been a goal of the 300-member group, which represents Browns Point, Dash Point and Northeast Tacoma. In recent years, it’s required passing the hat and applying for grants, he said, in hopes of raising thousands of dollars to get the work done
The lighthouse restoration project has an estimated price tag of $175,000. With all but roughly $25,000 secured, Harnish said, work will commence this summer with hopes to finish by fall.
Harnish described the effort as a labor of love and a practical necessity. While the lighthouse is owned by the U.S. Coast Guard, the maritime branch of the U.S. Armed Forces leases the site to Metro Parks Tacoma for its use as a public park and only actively maintains its light.
Having previously restored the boathouse, oil house and the generator building in the historical park, Harnish proudly views the lighthouse project as the final piece of the puzzle.
“We’re all volunteers, no paid staff,” Harnish said. “So we’ve been able to accomplish a lot.”
In a tight-knit community, it’s the kind of hyper-local project that gets eagerly discussed around dinner tables and on evening walks. Even beyond this berg, the end result will help to preserve a tiny piece of a larger local history that shaped the entire region, according to Port of Tacoma Commissioner John McCarthy.
McCarthy lives in Northeast Tacoma, but even he wasn’t always aware of the historical importance of the Browns Point Lighthouse. That changed when the Points NE Historical Society first applied for funding through the port’s local economic development investment fund, he said.
In 2018, the port awarded $10,000 from the fund to the historical society for the installation of interpretive signs at the park.
In 2020, the port ponied up again, pledging $25,000 to the lighthouse restoration.
According to McCarthy, it’s money well spent. The port’s economic development investment fund annually doles out about $250,000 to local projects of varying scales, he said. Providing a key source of funding for the lighthouse’s rejuvenation was an idea that won broad support among the group of officials tasked with administering the fund, given its ties to local maritime history, McCarthy added.
The historical society also has received funding from Metro Parks, the Ben B. Cheney Foundation and smaller private donations in recent years, Harnish noted.
“For some of us, it was kind of eye-opening to go out and really see and then study the history of the lighthouse as it relates to the Port of Tacoma,” McCarthy said. “What we came to realize is that for every vessel that’s called at the Port of Tacoma, they’ve come by there.”
For Harnish — a retired history professor — the impact hits closer to home. From the house he purchased in 1972 for the princely sum of $32,000, he has a view of the lighthouse. But he expects the work this summer to improve more than his appreciating sight lines.
The lighthouse helps to tell the story of his community’s early days, and making sure it’s around for the next hundred years is a way to unlock this history for generations to come.
“It’s kind of our little secret out here that doesn’t get a lot of traffic, which is nice. But also, it’s connected to our history,” Harnish said of the lighthouse and the park that surrounds it.
“It’s integral to the identity of the community.”
