Photograph of Point Cabrillo Light — Photograph by Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Point Cabrillo Light Station

Built in 1909 (bungalow). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. 7 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1920.

From the record

“Point Cabrillo Light is a lighthouse in northern California, United States, between Point Arena and Cape Mendocino, just south of the community of Caspar. It has been a federal aid to navigation since 1909.”
Wikipedia article Point Cabrillo Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 42 National Register listings published here for Mendocino County · listed in 1991 · category: District · built in 1909, bungalow.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. 45300 Lighthouse Rd., Caspar, 95460
When was it listed? September 1991
Category. district
Also known as. Light Stations of California MPS
Census division. Mendocino
When was it built? 1909
Architectural style. bungalow
National Register reference number. 91001092 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

278 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 278 fires within 5 miles of Point Cabrillo Light Station between 1992 and 2020, burning about 102 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 8 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	115
Debris and open burning	57
Equipment and vehicle use	29
Recreation and ceremony	27
Smoking	17
Misuse of fire by a minor	14
Arson/incendiarism	8
Power generation/transmission/distribution	5
Natural	4
Other causes	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2008	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Mendocino Unit	FRANKLIN RD FORTB 8
9 September 1993	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Mendocino Unit	TUPPER
8 September 2000	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Mendocino Unit	MITCHELL
7 September 2005	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Northern California District	CASPAR
7 September 1993	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Mendocino Unit	HEADLANDS
7 September 1992	Misuse of fire by a minor	1.0 acres	Mendocino Unit	STATE PARKS #3
7 September 1992	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Mendocino Unit	MULLEN
6 September 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Mendocino Unit	TURNER

Every fire recorded in Mendocino County

Storms near this property

2 since 2017

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Caspar, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 2017 and 2024: 2 heavy rain. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
February 2017	Heavy Rain	Caspar	$1,250,000	Culvert failure and sink along Highway 1 from mile post 34 to 38.
February 2024	Heavy Rain	Caspar	-	Landslide completely blocked Highway 1 resulting in a full closure for slide removal.

Every storm recorded in Mendocino County

Maps showing this location

7 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1920 USGS Fort Bragg quadrangle1:62500
1943 USGS Fort Bragg quadrangle1:62500 - 2 printings
1957 USGS Ukiah quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1960 USGS Fort Bragg quadrangle1:62500 - 2 printings
1960 USGS Mendocino quadrangle1:24000 - 3 printings
1960 USGS Ukiah quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1981 USGS Ukiah quadrangle1:100000 - 3 printings

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
FROLIC (brig)	0.5 miles	1991
Mendocino and Headlands Historic District	3.0 miles	1971
Jerome B. Ford House	3.2 miles	2010
Olinsky Building	6.8 miles	1995
Mendocino Woodlands Recreational Demonstration Area	7.0 miles	1997
Weller House	7.0 miles	1976

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 91001092 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Mendocino County	All 42 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.