Old Story Of Girl's Death Still Haunts Lighthouse

NEWPORT, Ore. - In the blackness of a stormy night a hundred years ago, a group of teenagers crept into the hallways of a musty, abandoned lighthouse outside the city.

As the story has it, one of them never came out.

When the young woman's friends went back into the darkened lighthouse to search for her, they found only her bloody handkerchief at the bottom of the third-floor stairs.

Years later, people still notice a mysterious light in the upstairs window of the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. They say they've heard cries and moans coming from the lighthouse while walking nearby.

Walt Muse oversees the lighthouse for the state Parks Department. He has heard it all.

"When there are storms in the evenings, people will come by and say they saw lights on in the lighthouse, and I say, `Guess what? There aren't any,' " he said.

The Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, built in 1871, is one of only four combination keeper's quarters and light towers built in Oregon. It's the only one still standing.

The lighthouse was used only three years, until the Yaquina Head lighthouse was built.

The lighthouse is also Newport's oldest building. A local volunteer group has raised and spent $250,000 to restore the lighthouse, and its beacon was relit in 1996.

There's no evidence to support the spooky tale of the young woman who disappeared in the lighthouse, Muse said.

But since that stormy evening in the late 1800s, the tale of the ghost of the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse has brought the curious, albeit nervous, to the historic lighthouse on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

The beacon atop the building and an outside alarm system are the only things run by electricity at the lighthouse. Yet, passers-by continue to report the single third-floor light.

Muse was surprised late one recent evening when he, too, witnessed the light.

He tried moving from side to side to see if the light was simply a star reflecting in the window. It wasn't. After several moments of intense observation, he surmised the tiny light in the upstairs room must be caused by light escaping from the beacon above.

At night, the lighthouse sits in total darkness surrounded by trees that cut an eerie profile against the coastal sky. The sound of waves crashing and the smell of sea salt are the only reminders that the ocean is a few hundred feet below.

Visitors who tour the lighthouse can see the chute behind the third-floor closet where the girl may have disappeared, and the blood stains remain at the base of the stairs.

Muse often stands by as tourists file through the historic building. He says many say they "feel something" within its walls.