The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum in Santa Barbara, California recently celebrated the opening of its new exhibit “Wives and Daughters: Keepers of the Light” about the women who tended the lights on the California coast from 1856 to the start of the 20th century. One was a socialite, another a successful naturalist, one an admiral’s daughter, and another a helpless eyewitness to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. And one - Julia F. Williams - stayed steadfastly at her post protecting ships coming and going from Santa Barbara for 40 years while the town transitioned from a small enclave of adobe houses to a thriving Victorian American City.
Also, a new display of artifacts found at the Point Conception Light Station by Bruce Drugg, who, during his time in the U.S. Coast Guard, was stationed at Point Conception Lighthouse from 1969-1971 and found these artifacts at the light station and cataloged their location. They are reminders of the smallest details of everyday life for those who served there.
These displays surround the centerpiece of the museum’s lighthouse collection, the first-order lens from the Pt. Conception Lighthouse (see the May/June 2014 issue of Lighthouse Digest for details on that exhibit). For more on the museum, go to: www.sbmm.org.
This story appeared in the
Sep/Oct 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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