The Rubicon Point Light is a small

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a Fresh water, freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevad ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

History

The lighthouse was requested, along with

buoy A buoy () is a floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. Types Navigational buoys * Race course marker buoys are used for buoy racing, the most prevalent form of yac ...

s for the lake, in 1913 by the Lake Tahoe Protective Association, and was built under the direction of J. J. Bodilsen in 1916; the work was done by the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

. The keeper was paid $180 per year, and was "required to furnish his own launch for visiting and recharging the light and in addition to shipping and receiving supplies for the light will be required to make a short trip each night to a point from which the light can be observed, there being no year around resident on the lake who can properly inspect the light from his residence.Rubicon Point Lighthouse
/ref>" Official sources state that the light was only lit for three years, until 1919; some locals, however, report that the tower was lit until sometime in the 1920s or 1930s. Still others report that it was discontinued in 1921. It was replaced by a light at Sugar Pine Point. The light at Rubicon Point was

acetylene Acetylene (systematic name: ethyne) is the chemical compound with the formula and structure . It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is unstable in its pure ...

-powered. Two 300-gallon tanks of the fuel were brought to Emerald Point daily, then taken to the light by

mule The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two pos ...

wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

. Maintaining the lighthouse was expensive; this appears to be the reason why it was abandoned fairly quickly. Over the years it has deteriorated to the point that many people mistake it for an

outhouse An outhouse is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a toilet. This is typically either a pit latrine or a bucket toilet, but other forms of dry toilet, dry (non-flushing) toilets may be encountered. The term may als ...

. Today efforts are being made to restore the tower. The lighthouse at Rubicon Point has the 2nd highest

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of any

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

lighthouse; it stands above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

, at a point where it could be seen from most places around the lake. It is currently located in D. L. Bliss State Park. Dillon Reservoir Lighthouse has the highest

of any

lighthouse; it stands above

, at Frisco Bay on Dillon Lake in Colorado. The Rubicon Point Light was added to the ''

Lighthouse Digest ''Lighthouse Digest'', a specialty magazine from FogHorn Publishing in East Machias, Maine, is about maritime history with particular attention to the preservation of lighthouses and their past. Though it is geared toward enthusiasts and antiqu ...

Doomsday List ''Lighthouse Digest'', a specialty magazine from FogHorn Publishing in East Machias, Maine, is about maritime history with particular attention to the preservation of lighthouses and their past. Though it is geared toward enthusiasts and anti ...

in 1997.

References

External links

Lighthouse Digest article

Article on its addition to the Doomsday List

{{authority control Lighthouses completed in 1916 Lake Tahoe Lighthouses in California History of El Dorado County, California History of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Transportation buildings and structures in El Dorado County, California Rustic architecture in California

History

See also

References

External links