The Mayo Beach Lighthouse

From its earliest days, the Mayo Beach Light in Wellfleet played a vital role guiding vessels into Wellfleet Harbor. Congress funded the original “house‐with‐lantern” station in 1837, and the brick keeper’s dwelling—topped by a simple lantern—first shone its light in 1838. In 1857 it received a Fresnel lens upgrade, and in 1881 the old house was replaced by a more durable 30-foot cast-iron tower set beside a new keeper’s residence.

That 1881 tower continued to warn mariners off Cape Cod’s shores until the station was decommissioned in 1922. Contrary to long-held belief that it was scrapped, archival letters uncovered by Colleen MacNeney in 2008 reveal that the structure was carefully dismantled, shipped cross-country, and re-erected the same year at Point Montara Light in California—where it replaced a wooden-frame tower from 1912. There it still operates today with its original FA25 lens, and visitors can explore the lighthouse grounds as part of the Point Montara Youth Hostel.

Alongside its structural legacy, Mayo Beach Light is remembered for its pioneering lighthouse keepers. In 1876 Sarah Atwood succeeded her husband and became one of the Coast Guard’s earliest female keepers, faithfully tending the light until 1891.

Sitting pretty in her Wellfleet home

And now where she sits today, San Mateo County, California