Cape Spencer Light

The Cape Spencer Light is a lighthouse in Alaska, United States, next to the entrance to Cross Sound and Icy Strait. The light is still an active aid to navigation. It is located on an islet in the southernmost end of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

A beacon at Cape Spencer was requested as early as 1906, but it wasn’t until 1912 that this rocky region received its first light - an unmanned acetylene lantern. Funds for a lighthouse to properly mark Cape Spencer were later granted, and construction commenced in May 1924. A single-story reinforced concrete building (51’ x 62’) was built at the summit of the rocky mass to house both the fog signal equipment and the keepers. From the center of the structure’s roof, a 14-by-14-foot tower rose another twenty-five feet.

The Coast Guard removed the Fresnel lens from Cape Spencer in 1974, the same year in which the lighthouse was automated. The small lighthouse, perched atop the seventy-foot-tall rock, is still considered an important navigational aid and receives regular Coast Guard visits.