» Saving pieces of the past

It’s lighthouse week. Go enjoy a lighthouse.

A county museum at the Umpqua River Lighthouse is celebrating with three shiny new artifacts.

Among the additions to the county’s collection is a chart of the mouth of the Umpqua River, dated 1854.

New artifacts

Cheryl LeVesque of Reedsport knew it belonged in a museum when she laid eyes on the roughly 8-by-11-inch map at a garage sale.

After failed attempts to track down the chart’s original owner, she took the item — surprisingly well preserved behind a glass frame — to the lighthouse museum.

“It fit right in,” she said.

The map soon will be hanging in the museum, where it adds to modern interpretive signs that, LeVesque said, are somewhat expected in historical exhibits.

“They’re nice, they’re large, but the sound objects are like putting the silver cup in there,” she said. “They’re the real object, and this one’s more than a hundred years old.”

Dotted with surveyors’ measurements, the chart is for navigating the bar at the “Umpquah” River — as it is spelled on the historic document.

It hearkens from a decade when several ships were lost at the river’s mouth and the U.S. Congress had appropriated funds to place buoys and build the lighthouse that overlooks the river today.

But even the vessel carrying an early load of construction materials for the lighthouse sunk near the mouth of the Umpqua.

Dan and Connie Loop, also from Reedsport, added a wood-and-rope ladder to the museum’s collection. They estimate it’s close to 100 years old.

Called a Jacob’s or pilot’s ladder, the devices were commonly thrown from larger ships to shore-bound vessels or from piers to  boats.

Dan Loop said he purchased the ladder several years ago in the Empire district of Coos Bay. The 50-year-old woman he purchased the ladder from had inherited it from her grandfather, who kept it in an attic when she was a girl, Loop said.

Loop, a collector of maritime artifacts, originally wanted the ladder to decorate the side of his house. He determined it was too fragile to expose to the weather, so he put it in storage.

It sat for three years before Loop and his wife were cleaning their garage recently, and noticed it again.

“It just wasn’t serving its purpose. No one who saw it knew what it was,” Loop said. “We were both looking at it and we said this needs to go to a museum.”

Museum staff aren’t certain, but they guessed from the ladder’s construction that it was used between 1900 and the 1940s.

“It could be older, maybe not,” Loop said.

An age-yellowed U.S. Coast Guard flag is the third item to join the collection. Florence resident Shirley Wilson said she picked up the flag for a small price at an estate sale. She donated it after seeing a similar banner displayed at the lighthouse museum.

Celebrating lighthouses

All of the items are welcome additions, according to the Friends of the Umpqua River Light. The group has been calling for memorabilia in preparation for a symposium later this year.

Group member Sherri Elliott said while lighthouse week would be an appropriate occasion for the Friends group to showcase the 116-year-old Umpqua River Lighthouse, they will wait until the lighthouse’s official birthday in September.

Lighthouse Week coincides with DuneFest, a local event that has visitor attention turned to the nearby Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.

Elliott and county park staff say the state once led a PR campaign and events each year to raise awareness for Oregon lighthouses. But the events are gone and the now not-so-official National Lighthouse Week seemingly has slipped from the radars of lighthouse stewards.

A call to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department information line confirmed the state is not planning events for lighthouse week.

Regardless, said advocates, the Umpqua River Lighthouse continues to draw national attention from lighthouse lovers.

Tim Harrison, editor and publisher of Lighthouse Digest Magazine, said the light is known to many of his readers for its distinctive red-and-white beacon. The magazine’s 23,000 subscribers are distributed in all 50 states, Harrison said. Many are lighthouse buffs.

“We’re for people who try to plan their vacations around lighthouses,” he said.

Harrison said when the Harbour Lights collectibles manufacturer started making lighthouse replicas in the early 1990s, one of the first in its series was the Umpqua River Light.

“Every lighthouse buff in the nation knows the Umpqua River Lighthouse,” Harrison said.

The lighthouse even made a stamp, Elliott said. When 86-year-old stamp artist Howard Koslow painted one lighthouse each from Oregon, Washington, California, Alaska and Hawaii, his painting of the Umpqua River Light was selected for the U.S. Postal Service’s 2007 Pacific Lighthouse stamps.

Even without events to herald the lighthouses, Elliott encourages everyone to visit a local lighthouse. Many, she said, are accessible by car or a short walk.