Oregon Coast Lighthouse Heritage · National Register of Historic Places · First Order Fresnel Lens · Pacific Coast Navigation History
Heceta Head Lighthouse sits on a basalt promontory 205 feet above the Pacific Ocean, 13 miles north of Florence on the central Oregon Coast. The 56-foot tower's First Order Fresnel lens was first illuminated on March 30, 1894, and has operated continuously since — visible 21 miles offshore, one of the brightest lights on the Pacific Coast.
The Keeper’s Home dates to 1892; the residence complex originally housed the head keeper in one structure and the first and second assistant keepers in a duplex next door. The head keeper's dwelling was demolished in 1940; the assistant keepers' duplex survived and is now the building operating as the Heceta Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast. It's a rare surviving example of its architectural type on the Oregon Coast.
The lighthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places. Administration is split: the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department manages the lighthouse and the surrounding Heceta Head Lighthouse State Scenic Viewpoint (renamed in 1994 from Devils Elbow State Park). The B&B itself sits on adjacent U.S. Forest Service land and operates under a Forest Service concessionaire permit held by WR Trillium Inc, which has run it since 1995.
The lighthouse tower interior is not open for tours; grounds and the lighthouse base are accessible to day visitors when rangers are present (day parking $5). The B&B has functioned since 1994 and holds a 4.5-star TripAdvisor average across thousands of reviews.
Sources
- https://www.hecetalighthouse.com/
- https://beachconnection.net/news/beneath-lighthouse-heceta-head-tales-curiosities.php
- https://traveloregon.com/things-to-do/culture-history/lighthouses/heceta-head-lighthouse/
- https://www.pdxmonthly.com/travel-and-outdoors/2024/08/heceta-head-lighthouse-ghost-haunted-oregon-coast
- https://www.columbian.com/news/2017/nov/02/rue-the-resident-ghost-haunts-heceta-head-house/
- https://www.islands.com/1688679/stay-photographed-heceta-lighthouse-oregon-coast-supposedly-haunted/
- https://www.montereyboats.com/news/view/the-haunting-of-rue/
- https://oregondiscovery.com/heceta-head-lighthouse-legends
- https://www.foxnews.com/travel/americas-spookiest-lighthouse.amp
- https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=131
ApparitionsObject movementPhantom soundsResidual haunting
The ghost at the Heceta Lighthouse B&B acquired her name from a specific event: a group of Lane Community College students who held a Ouija board session in the cottage and received the letters R-U-E when asking the spirit's identity. Rue has been the established name for the presence ever since.
The lighthouse's volunteer historian, who has researched the lightkeeper records thoroughly, has not been able to identify a person named Rue — or a variant — in the historical keeper records. The historian acknowledges the accounts of activity at the building while noting that the historical identity remains unresolved.
The traditional narrative holds that Rue was the wife of a former lightkeeper and that her attachment to the cottage is connected to a child who drowned and is buried somewhere on the headland property. No burial has been formally identified or documented by the historical record.
Rue's reported activity is consistently described as non-threatening: floating down hallways, rapping on walls, moving guests' belongings so they cannot be found, and making herself known through unexplained sounds. Victoria's Room — named for the Victorian furnishings and identified as historically associated with the keeper's sleeping quarters — is the specific location where guests most frequently report encountering her presence. Portland Monthly's August 2024 feature documented a reporter's overnight experience, including entries from the guest book recording Rue encounters across multiple years of visitors.
