Heceta Head Lighthouse is the most photographed lighthouse on the Oregon Coast and one of the most photographed on the entire West Coast, which is a distinction that requires something to earn. The 56-foot white tower on a headland above the Pacific, surrounded by Sitka spruce and visible from the highway below, produces the specific combination of scale, color, and setting that makes photographs almost inevitable.
The lighthouse was built between 1892 and 1893 and first cast its beam on March 30, 1894. It was named for Bruno de Heceta, the Spanish navigator who surveyed this stretch of Oregon coast in 1775. The First Order Fresnel lens, installed at construction, remains in operation and is rated as the strongest light on the Oregon Coast — visible 21 miles at sea. The lighthouse was fully restored in 2013 with careful attention to maintaining its 1893 appearance.
The keeper's house adjacent to the lighthouse has been operating as a bed and breakfast since 1995, which is one of the more singular overnight experiences available on the Oregon Coast. The grounds are accessible to day visitors and the viewpoints from the headland look south along the coast and west into the open Pacific.
The trail from the Devils Elbow State Park parking area below climbs through Sitka spruce to the lighthouse in about a quarter mile. On clear days the view includes Heceta Head's distinctive profile from below — the lighthouse tower above the white fog signal building, the coast curving away in both directions. This is the image most people have seen. In person it exceeds it.