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Heceta House: A History and Architectural Survey |
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SECTION ONE: HISTORY
III: AN END TO ISOLATION
DeRoy was replaced by veteran light keeper Clifford B. "Cap" Hermann, who had received his first lighthouse appointment in 1905. Cap had a number of assignments under his belt: Tatoosh Island, Lime Kiln, Cape Arago and isolated Destruction Island. (At the last station, it was reported that the only residents other than the keepers and their families ". . .were a cow and the lowly mole.")1
1The Siuslaw Oar (Florence, Oregon), July 19, 1935, p. 1.
Hermann arrived at Heceta Head in September of 1925 in time to witness the first in a series of milestones.
In 1926, Cy Cooper became the first mail carrier to complete the dreaded Florence-Yachats run by automobile. Cy drove a stripped, 1918 Model-T Ford with 13 forward and 8 reverse gears. It was said he started shifting at Yachats and didn't stop until he reached Florence.
The coastal route Cooper serviced had changed considerably since the days carriers bellied their way around Cape Perpetua. The Heceta Head post office was discontinued July 5, 1922 and moved to Roosevelt Beach. Reasons for the move are not documented. The number of families along the route had increased to 45.
Actually, Cooper's Model-T was not an uncommon sight at Heceta Head. The Bays had purchased a Chevrolet in the early twenties, and an increasing number of tourists were making the light station a stopping point on their Sunday drives. However, Charles Stonefield, along with his team and wagon, often was enlisted to rescue automobiles that had bogged down in sand or mud.
Cy Cooper did not always fare well with his mail truck either, as this notice from the Florence newspaper indicates:
From the far western end of Lane County a call for aid came to the office of Supervisor R. S. Shelly of the Siuslaw National Forest. The request was from the mail carrier who every other day makes the trip between Florence and Yachats. "I get stuck several times every trip," said the carrier. "Can't you help fix up some of the worst mud holes?" Mr. Shelly sent a message to the ranger in that district to spend a little money on maintenence work on the road, and a few of the mud holes were eliminated.2
2The Siuslaw Oar (Florence, Oregon), December 26, 1941, p. 1.
If the misadventures of Cy Cooper did not give lighthouse folk enough to talk about, a romance brewing at the Stonefields did. In 1926, a new teacher by the name of Trell Kemp came to Heceta Head, and, as one former resident succinctly put it, "Trell fell in love with Fred Stonefield, and they got married."3
3Emma Walters, private interview held at Portland, Oregon, November, 1979.
1930 saw the departure of two of the head's "old timers," Bob Bay and Charlie Walters. Bay, who had served as first assistant for 12 years, was transferred to Smith Island, Washington. Second assistant Walters was reassigned to Bandon.
One Florence resident vividly recalls the going-away party thrown for Walters. Home brew had to be smuggled in, as Prohibition was still on the books. Of course, Hermann could never have allowed liquor at his station. This problem was avoided by keeping Cap in the dark about the party.
Walters had the midnight-to-daylight shift the night of the party, but he had plenty of help with the job. All the men at the party went up in the tower with him. We walked on tiptoe, so we wouldn't wake up the captain and his wife.4
4Lary Grimshaw, telephone interview held October, 1979.
Further excitement reached the head with the discovery of a supposed gold strike. The "Oar" provided some of the details:
C. M. Prather believes he has found a gold and silver bearing ledge at Heceta Head. It may be the mine which was discovered years ago and lost because of a huge slide. Mr. Prather is not experienced in mining and is seeking someone with knowledge of the game who will go in with him in the venture.5
5The Siuslaw Oar (Florence, Oregon), July 18, 1930, p. 1.
Apparently C. M. Prather, whoever he may have been, never found a knowledgeable partner, for no further mention is made of the gold ledge.
Even rumors of a gold mine took back seat to the all-consuming, highly contagious passion that gripped the Oregon coast: highway fever.
By 1925, the Roosevelt Coast Military Highway6 was completed with the exception of the 90 miles in the middle of the state. This apparent abandonment of Lane County prompted one disgruntled reporter to write, "Within a short time Lane County will stand alone as the one section in Oregon which obstructs the free passage of tourists up and down the coast over the Roosevelt Highway."7
6Following the start of World War I, support for a "military" highway that would connect the entire west coast grew rapidly. The Oregon legislature voted $2.5 million for the coastal highway in a spirit of cooperation with the federal scheme for a major highway network. The highway was named for President Theodore Roosevelt. However, this name was later deemed inappropriate and in 1931, the state legislature officially changed it to Oregon Coast Highway.
7The Siuslaw Oar (Florence, Oregon), April 19, 1929, p. 1.
The anonymous writer did not have long to wait. By 1930, the Cape Perpetua section of the highway was underway, and survey work at Heceta Head had begun.
Workers began trickling into Heceta that year, and by January of 1931, they had transformed Cape Creek into a crowded work camp. This caused Cap Hermann to remark that he was "virtually surrounded by road builders and the day for lonesomeness is passed."8
8The Siuslaw Oar (Florence, Oregon), January 30, 1931, p. 1.
In April of 1931, John K. Holt, contractor for the majority of the Cape Creek bridge work, arrived with his foreman, engineer and two laborers. Holt came immediately after finishing the bridge at Grants Pass.
The Siuslaw Oar placed projected cost of the bridge at $150,000. (Cost of the tunnel was not given.) When completed, the concrete and steel structure would include a main span 220 feet long, with several smaller spans.
Holt was responsible for the major span of the bridge, while the Clackamas Construction Company had a contract for 220 feet of smaller arches. Kern & Kibb were awarded the contract for the tunnel.
Holt alone employed between 35 and 50 men on his project. Those hired on by other companies brought the total of workmen closer to 90.
The majority of laborers earned 50 cents an hour for a 6-hour day. This rate was set by both the Federal Bureau of Roads and the State Highway Commission.
A number of local residents found work at the construction site. Among them were Fred Stonefield, who ran a compressor in the tunnel, and Charlie Walters' son, Mike, who worked on the survey crew.
Those men not within easy walking distance to Heceta Head set up camp at Cape Creek. This prompted one reporter to comment,
One must reach the Rufus Stonefield place before he gets a real vision of the magnitude of the job which engineers were so long in mapping out. There is a real village here of cabins and tents. Men, women and children, for there are several camps in one.9
9The Siuslaw Oar (Florence, Oregon), June 12, 1931, p. 1.
With the arrival of the children of the workers, the ranks of the Heceta Head student body swelled to 60. The problem of overcrowding was further compounded when highway construction necessitated removing the existing schoolhouse.
A "town meeting" was called to discuss the problem, where it was decided to hire two teachers and erect a new schoolhouse. The school building was constructed in one day, with the help of 20 carpenters. Classes began on schedule September 25, 1931.10
10No further references are made to the school in any publication. Whether the building was torn down, or simply deteriorated is not known.
Despite the crowded living conditions, camaraderie was high among the workers and their families. A supply station and mess hall catered to their needs, and the beach provided recreation.
For the most part, the road crew and the lighthouse families did not mix much. However, Charlie Walters' wife, Emma, supplied lunches for a few of the workmen, and made a small profit in the bargain.
Transportation of materials to the work site was not as difficult as it had been in the days of lighthouse construction. Pilings for the bridge were towed in rafts along the Siuslaw, just as lumber for the keepers' quarters had been, but other materials were produced at Cape Creek. According to the "Oar," the Ross Highway Lumber Company turned out 6,000 feet of lumber at the Cape daily. A rock crushing plant established at the site produced much of the rock used in surfacing the 14 miles from Berry Creek to the northern boundary of Lane County.
Workers may not have been hampered by lack of materials, but they were slowed by accidents. The worst of these occurred at Cape Perpetua in July of 1930. Blasting set off a rock slide which fatally struck one workman in the head, and buried another under 15 feet of earth. The bodies were found after a 48-hour search by the entire road crew.
Slides also were reported during construction of the Cape Creek section of highway. One that occurred 600 feet south of the tunnel was said to have sent between two and three thousand yards of earth tumbling down the 115-foot slope above the road bed. At least half the mass reportedly fell into the ocean.
Luckily, no serious injuries were recorded as a result of slides at Cape Creek. However, one employee of the Cape sawmill lost his hand when it came in contact with a blade.
Public interest in the highway remained intense throughout the entire construction period. Sightseers flocked to Heceta Head, though the staff of the "Oar" did their best to discourage the practice. One disgruntled reporter commented,
It is surprising how many visitors make the trip up the coast as far as the lighthouse. It is a wonderful trip all right, but the big force of trucks which are doing duty on highway construction make the trip irritating to the visitor and sometimes inconvenient to the truck drivers. These men are busy and do not want to be held up.11
11The Siuslaw Oar (Florence, Oregon), June 12, 1931, p. 1.
In addition to warning travelers away from the busy truck drivers, the "Oar" writers did an admirable job of keeping their readers informed of progress on the bridge. Articles on the subject appeared on the front page of every weekly edition. One of the more descriptive reports reads:
The noise around this bridge building is the first thing that impresses. There are ninety men working on it and each one of them does something that makes a noise, to say nothing of the power saws, the moving cables, the rock crusher and—the elements. But of all the noise that is made you scarcely ever hear a human voice. Nobody hollers. Holt is so quiet that you have to have good ears.....
You can't help but wonder how in the dickens the great state of Oregon wants to make an expenditure like this to cross a little creek which isn't more than knee deep. Great arches up there a hundred feet above the little valley. An architectural beauty which would adorn the metropolis of Paris or any other place, and now being built along side of Rufus Stonefield's cattle ranch.12
In December of 1931, the tunnel was completed and that work camp abandoned. The bridge was scheduled for completion by November of 1931, but when November came, engineers were expressing doubts that it would be finished before May of 1932. That prediction proved a bit pessimistic, as the final completion date reported by the "Oar" was March 31, 1932.
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| Test hole for the Cape Creek Tunnel. |
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| Workers' cabins at Cape Creek. |
The opening of the Cape Creek-Florence link in the Oregon Coast Highway system had tremendous consequences for Heceta Head residents. Easy access to the markets of Florence made the raising of vegetables, chickens and milk cows unnecessary. At the same time, more visitors than ever found their way to the lighthouse, and tour guiding became an unofficial duty of the keepers. In fact, a visitors' book was provided especially for the signatures of guests.
For the light keepers, the tourists provided a welcomed break from the tedium of brass polishing and white-washing. However, not everyone hailed the increased flow of traffic, least of all the Stonefields. One of Charles' grandsons described the effect this way:
Soon as that highway got built there were people everywhere—couldn't believe it. Interfered with us and our fishing and hunting. See, before there was just that old road. In the wintertime it wasn't passable unless you rode horseback. We could hunt and fish whenever we wanted, catch as much as we wanted, use a net and anything else. As soon as the highway was built and people started coming through, that kind of put the skids to that.13
13George Stonefield, private interview held at Florence, Oregon, October, 1979.
The highway also spelled an end to the Heceta Head school. After the workers left with their families, few school-aged children remained in the area. The Hermanns had no children, and the youngest Stonefields had long since graduated. It eventually became more practical to transport the few remaining students to Florence, rather than maintain a schoolhouse and teacher at Heceta.
Just two years after the highway was completed, another change hit Heceta Head full force: electric power was installed at the station. A combination garage and power plant were constructed in October, 1934, under the supervision of the chief electrician from the Portland Lighthouse Service office. On-off lighting, electric washing machines and irons were not the only conveniences made possible by the power plant, certain operations at the light tower were automated as well.
The bunsen-type lamp in the lens was replaced by an electric bulb. A 500-watt bulb increased the candle power to 1,000,000, visible 21 miles. The manually operated clockworks which powered the revolving lens were converted to an electrical system, and motors placed the beacon on a new flash system. (A white light went off every ten seconds, rather than every minute.)
Elimination of the task of winding the clockworks may have seemed a boon to the keepers, but it soon became apparent that increasing automation would change the nature of light tending.
Initially, three keepers were maintained at the station, despite the decreased work load. Hermann and his wife remained in the single residence, although assistant keepers changed often after the departure of Bay and Walters.
Albert Johnson replaced one of the pair, probably second assistant Walters. He served until 1932, when he was transferred to Puget Sound. Johnson returned to Heceta Head in 1936, replacing a Fred Sargeant as first assistant. Bill Schumacher served as second assistant for a time, but he resigned from the service in the late thirties and was never replaced. Following the departure of the Schumachers, the Hermanns moved into the duplex, leaving the single residence vacant.
Ostensibly, the position of third assistant was eliminated because the electrically powered tower did not require as much attention as it did in the days of bunsen lamps and clockworks. Also, the more stringent regulations of the Lighthouse Service had been relaxed. Inspections still were held, but the days of the white gloves were gone.
A change in the administration of navigational aids also may have been a factor in the reduction of the station's work force. In 1939, the Lighthouse Service was transferred from the Department of Commerce to the U. S. Coast Guard.
When the change was implemented, the Coast Guard gave all Lighthouse Service personnel the opportunity to enter the Guard or remain working in a civilian capacity. According to Coast Guard historian Robert L. Scheina, between 20 and 30 percent of lighthouse personnel simply quit. However, most of those who resigned worked on tenders or in tender depots. Because Schumacher left close to this period of transition, it may have been viewed as a good time to reduce operating costs by phasing out his position altogether.
With the elimination of the third keeper, the single house was no longer essential. For undocumented reasons, Coast Guard officials decided to tear down the residence.
In 1940, Rufus Johnson of Mapleton secured the contract for razing the head keeper's house. In exchange for his labor and an additional payment of $10, he was given ownership of all salvagable materials. Johnson's 15-year-old son, Wayne, helped in the work. Wayne recalls that the place was stripped before his father arrived on the scene. All the furniture, the stained glass window and the light fixtures had been removed.
The Johnsons had no easy time disassembling the house. According to Wayne, simply removing the nails took a supreme effort. The elder Johnson used the salvaged lumber to build a store in Mapleton, which is now the Alphabet Cafe. Flooring in the house was installed in the Walt Huntington home in Mapleton.
Wayne Johnson cannot offer any explanation for the demolition of the house, but another long time resident of the Florence area, Bertha Good, discussed the removal of the house with the commander of the Florence Coast Guard station, Joe Bernhardt. He claimed photographs of the area had been taken from enemy Japanese submarines. According to the commander, the house was torn down in the hope that it would alter the Heceta Head landscape enough to prevent Japanese from recognizing the station.
Keeper Johnson's wife, Hazel, never heard the theory about Japanese photography. She was told the house was razed due to problems with termites and dry rot.
However, historian Scheina doubts all these explanations:
I have never seen a house torn down because personnel were cut down. That's just not a pattern. Also, during the entire war, only two Japanese subs were ever seen on the west coast, so the story about the photography does not sound correct. The Coast Guard, then and today, is an extremely frugal organization. I can't believe they would tear anything down without very good reason.14
14Robert L. Scheina, telephone interview conducted November, 1979.
Whatever the reason, the house was demolished and the site planted in lawn. Unfortunately, the residence was gone before it had outlived its usefulness. As war with Japan became more and more inevitable, Coast Guard personnel began trickling, then streaming into the station. The keepers' house could have provided quarters for at least a few of the men. No doubt, the decision to remove it was regretted more than once during the coming years.
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Last Updated: 04-Aug-2008