The Old Point Loma Lighthouse, Illuminating the Past . . .

The Old Point Loma Lighthouse stood watch over the entrance to San Diego Bay for 36 years. At dusk on November 15, 1855 the light keeper climbed the winding stairs and lit the light for the first time. What seemed to be a good location 422 feet above sea level, however, had a serious flaw. Fog and low clouds often obscured the light. On March 23, 1891 the light was extinguished and the keeper moved to a new lighthouse location closer to the water at the tip of the Point.

Today the Old Point Loma Light House still stands watch over San Diego, sentinel to a vanished past. The National Park Service has refurbished the interior to its historic 1880’s appearance -- a reminder of a bygone era. Ranger-led talks, displays and brochures are available to explain the lighthouses interesting past.

Point Loma is a scenic hill that sits atop San Diego Bay, in California, USA. Point Loma's well known landmark is the Cabrillo National Monument, named after Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo of Spain, the first European explorer to see San Diego Bay. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse is part of the monument, where visitors tour the historic lighthouse that guided ships through the San Diego Bay from 1855 to 1891.

Point Loma is also home to the San Diego Sports Arena (recently renamed the iPayOne Center), the popular rock concert venue SOMA, and Point Loma Nazarene University, as well as many hotels, unique local businesses, and the former United States Naval Training Center, or NTC. The NTC served as training grounds for new Naval recruits, but its current location is in Illinois. The site of the Point Loma facility is no longer a Navy base. It is now known as Liberty Station, a 361-acre mixed use redevelopment project that includes residential, office, retail, educational (http://www.hightechhigh.org) and civic, arts and cultural districts (http://ntcpromenade.org). Liberty Station, developed by the City of San Diego and The Corky McMillin Companies (http://www.mcmillin.com), also includes a 9-hole golf course, a 46-acre waterfront park and a 100-acre historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. The Point Loma Naval Submarine Base, at the end of Rosecrans Boulevard, is still in operation. "Subase Point Loma" is the home of Submarine Squadron 11, several Nuclear Fast Attack Submarines, and historic Fort Rosecrans, a former US Army Coastal Gunnery Facility of the First World War era, which includes the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and the USS Bennington Monument.