To the Lighthouse: You Know, the One in San Francisco Hardly Anyone Seems to Know About

Not long ago, I sat on a rock about the size of a tennis lawn near my home in San Francisco. It was by choice: From my widow’s walk perch atop East Brother Light Station, in the narrow strait that separates San Francisco Bay from San Pablo Bay, I saw a blue-sky day get eaten up by a plume of fog coming in through the Golden Gate at sunset, fishermen out for sturgeon and striped bass, and pelicans camped out on the adjacent (and even smaller) West Brother Island.

The lighthouse was San Francisco's first, built in the late 19th century on the single-acre rock of East Brother Island. During the Gold Rush, thousands of ships came through San Francisco Bay, and because of the hazardous reefs, rocks, and shallows that snared so many boats in the bay’s northern reaches, a dozen lighthouses were eventually built in the area. Over the next century, lighthouse keepers and their families lived on tiny East Brother, keeping animals and gardens and even bringing in teachers for months-long stints with their kids.