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On July 1, 1939, the Lighthouse Service — a 150-year-old institution — ceased to exist. As part of FDR’s Reorganization Plan No. II, it was transferred to the Treasury Department and consolidated with the Coast Guard. At the time of this transition, lighthouse keepers were given several options: they could quit; retire if they were eligible; remain a civilian keeper wearing the United States Lighthouse Service uniform; or transfer into the Coast Guard.
In 1939, Point San Luis had three keepers: head keeper John Robert “Bob” Moorefield, 1st assistant Thomas Guy Lewis, and 2nd assistant Jens Otto Wagner. All three initially chose to remain civilian keepers, even though there were disadvantages to doing so. By staying Civil Service employees, for example, keepers were eligible for the draft; although the United States had not yet entered World War II, it had begun in Europe that September.
Lewis, born in 1892, was a World War I veteran and had been a keeper at several lighthouses before requesting a transfer to Point San Luis in June 1938. It was a promotion for him, from 2nd assistant to 1st assistant, although the promotion came with a reduction in pay. Wagner, born in 1896, transferred to Point San Luis from St. George Reef in August 1938. The two families lived side-by-side at the light station, in the two-story duplex built in 1890. They did not get along. At one point, in 1940, Lewis reported to Moorefield that Wagner’s wife threatened to slap Lewis in the face and sue him. One of the Lewis kids bullied one of the Wagner boys, once locking him in a chicken house and refusing to let him out.
It must have been a relief to all concerned when Wagner resigned as a keeper in November 1940 to take a position with the War Department in San Francisco. Peace at the light station, at least temporarily, was restored.
Replacing Wagner as 2nd assistant was John Majon “Jack” Stelling. With Stelling’s arrival, the light station’s “Coast Guard era” was officially underway.
Stelling, born in 1919, was an enlisted man, a seaman 1st class; he had previously been stationed at the Farallon Island light station and aboard the Coast Guard lightship Relief in San Francisco Bay. He and his wife June arrived at Point San Luis on December 13, 1940. The couple stayed until June 1941 when, presumably, Stelling was honorably discharged. (He enlisted again, in 1944 during World War II, this time in the Navy.)
Stelling was replaced in July 1941 by boatswain’s mate second class Donald Albert “Don” Fiess, the second member of the Coast Guard to be assigned to Point San Luis. Fiess, born in 1918, had just married Ellogene Brown in March 1941. He had previously served at the Farallon Islands and on the Blunts Reef lightship.
Along with civilian keeper Lewis, Fiess served under Bob Moorefield, who had resigned from his civilian position and joined the Coast Guard on July 7, 1941. (Medical care was better for Coast Guard military personnel than for its civilian employees and Moorefield’s wife was ill.) A little more than a year later, on August 18, 1942, at San Luis Obispo’s Mountain View Hospital, Ellogene Fiess delivered Linda Gayle, the Fiess’s first-born child and the station’s first Coast Guard baby.
It must have been a stressful time to be stationed at the lighthouse. Five months after Don and Ellogene’s arrival, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred; two-and-a-half weeks later a Union Oil Company tanker, the Montebello, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine shortly after it sailed from Port San Luis. The attack occurred about four miles west and two miles south of the Piedras Blancas light station in coastal waters near the town of San Simeon.
As the reader might imagine, much changed at Point San Luis when the United States entered the war. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, continuous watches were established; blackouts of the Fresnel lens in the lighthouse tower and the lighted buoys in San Luis Bay were common; more military men were assigned to the light station; and in January 1942 a lookout house was erected. It wasn’t until September 1942 that orders were received to resume the normal operation of the light.
Also in September 1942, Moorefield received orders to assume temporary charge of the Avila Section, U.S. Coast Guard Beach Patrol:
‘You will establish a regular patrol between Avila and Point Buchon with the facilities and men now available at Avila. Patrols must be maintained every night from sunset to sunrise, and also during inclement weather or foggy weather when the visibility is zero.
“Under no condition should a man be left alone on patrol, but they should travel in pairs and be stationed fifty feet apart. Rifles will be distributed at a later date, but the main weapon used by the men on beach patrol duty is a police club.
“It is understood that until transportation facilities are furnished this station you will find it difficult to establish a patrol at a distance from the Avila headquarters. But if you contact the Army they might aid you in this matter. However, until the Section is fully established, maintain patrols at such places as can be reached, and also take steps to get the quarters in shape so that when all equipment is received, the patrol can be immediately set up.
“Make a survey of such communication facilities as are available, and divide the beach up into sections so that they can be readily identified, and men can be assigned posts.
“The men on patrol are to report any unusual activities or attempted landings to the Avila Section office; then this information will be transmitted to the nearest Army headquarters. Reports are to be made via the fastest available means.”
No doubt Fiess participated in beach patrol duty along with the other military men stationed at Point San Luis at the time.
The Lewis and Fiess families left the light station on the tender ship Lupine in November 1942;
the Lewises to the Carquinez Strait light; the Fiesses to a new wartime assignment.
With Lewis’s departure, the era of civilian keepers at Point San Luis, which had begun in June 1890, was officially over. Only Moorefield remained from the “lighthouse service era,” but he was now a Coastie.
Note: Kathy Mastako is the author of “The Lighthouse at Point San Luis, A collection of short (true) stories.” The book is available at the Point San Luis gift shop and on Amazon, among other outlets. Book proceeds benefit the Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers, the 501(c) (3) non-profit organization that operates the light station.
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