Location: Entrance to West Passage of Narragansett Bay
1882 - present --Lat 41 26 42 N - Long 71 25 24 W

Established: 1882

Lighthouse Constructed: 1882

Destroyed: 1938

Original Illuminating Apparatus: Lighthouese: Fourth Order Fresnel Lens (1906)
Skeleton tower: 200mm lens (1950)

Current Illuminating Apparatus: None

Height: Lighthouse: Light 73 feet from top of pier (1906)
Skeleton tower: Light 59 feet above the water (1950)
None (2005)

Status: No longer exists

Light Characteristic: Lighthouse: Fixed Red (1906)
Skeleton tower: Flashing Green every 6 seconds (1950)
None (2005)

Range: Lighthouse: 11¼ miles (1906)
Skeleton tower: 7 miles (1950)
None (2005)

Whale Rocks at the entrance to West Passage of Narragansett Bay claimed at least eight ships and six lives before the Lighthouse Board recommended building a light on the rock in 1872. In its annual report for that year, the Board described it as a "a reef of rocks awash at all stages of tides, and a dangerous obstruction to navigation ... " Congress ignored the Board's recommendation for nine years.

In 1881 Congress finally appropriated $35,000 to build Whale Rock Light. Building the light wasn't easy. Work could only be done at low tide and calm seas. Only the light's foundation was finished before autumn storms forced construction to stop. The light was completed in 1882 and lighted on October 1 of that year.

On September 21, 1938 Whale Rock's keeper Daniel Sullivan went ashore to get supplies. The assistant keeper, Walter Eberle, was left in charge of the light. The former navy man had been with the Lighthouse Service for just a year. While Sullivan was ashore the 1938 Hurricane hit Rhode Island and prevented him from returning to the light.

Whale Rock Light was hit repeatedly by waves that grew bigger as the storm grew stronger. Eberle probably took refuge in the lighthouse's top floor. Keepers at similar lighthouses in the area rode out the storm in the top floor, as the sea smashed out the sash windows on the lower floors, but did not break the port holes on the top floor. After hours of this punishment, the metal lighthouse reached its breaking point. A huge wave hit the lighthouse and tore off the lantern, watch room and the light's top two stories, killing Eberle. His body was never found. He left a wife and six children. The bottom two floors collapsed into the base, shortly after the hurricane ended. An examination of the remains of the lighthouse found books, shoes, clothing, and a made-up bed still intact.

Over the years there'd been speculation that Whale Rock Lighthouse wasn't fastened to its base. One keeper even put this belief into the lighthouse's log. Some local residents believed this was the reason the lighthouse was destroyed. On November 9, 1938, the 2nd District Associate Engineer visited the remains of Whale Rock Lighthouse to find out why it was destroyed. During the examination of its concrete base, he discovered the lighthouse wasn't fastened to the base. He found "no evidence of anchor bolts or any other means by which the cast iron tower plates were actually held the masonry pier, except for the brick tower lining, which appeared to be 8" thick at the bottom, and the mass of the entire tower." This wasn't the reason the lighthouse was destroyed, though. The engineer found some of the bolts holding the lighthouse's cast iron plate together were corroded. This weakened its structural integrity. The repeated pounding of the waves on September 21 jarred the corroded bolts loose and tore the top off.

On September 28, 1938, a type 9-38-W buoy was placed 300 yards east from Whale Rock. This new navigation aid was named Whale Rock Lighted Whistle Buoy 3. The people of Jamestown complained that it emitted "a most mournful depressing sound." They wanted it changed to either a lighted gong or bell buoy. The buoy was later changed to a gong buoy. In 1940 what remained of the lighthouse was removed from the base. A skeleton tower and light was placed on the base. It was later removed.

Today all that remains of the light is the remnants of the base. In 2004 David Robinson, an undersea archeologist with the Public Archeology Lab in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, located the metal remains of the lighthouse. He said, the seabed was scattered with "millions of pieces of metal, some as big as desks. He will return to site in the spring of 2005 to survey and document the site with video equipment.