Heceta Head Lighthouse

Heceta Head rises steeply above the Pacific north of Florence, and in 1892–93 the Lighthouse Board built a lighthouse on a ledge of the headland, first lit in 1894, with a Queen Anne-style duplex nearby for the assistant keepers and their families. Keepers’ families lived there in considerable isolation. After the light was automated in 1963 the U.S. Forest Service took over the house, leased it to Lane Community College from 1970, and later restored it; it now operates as a bed and breakfast, while the light itself is part of a state scenic viewpoint.

The ghost story surfaced in the 1970s, when the house was occupied by caretakers. On November 26, 1975, the Siuslaw News ran the headline “Lady of the Lighthouse Baffles Workmen.” According to the Forest Service’s history of the house, the caretakers first blamed noises on floorboards, wind and chimneys, but later described a scream during a card party, cupboard doors found open and small objects swapped or moved. Two students reported a long, flowing gray form going up the porch steps. A workman named Jim Anderson said he saw the reflection of a gray-haired woman in an 1890s-style gown in an attic window he was cleaning, fled, and broke the window; the next morning the glass was found swept into a neat pile.

Who she might be is uncertain. A small slab near the house is said to mark the grave of a baby girl, presumably the daughter of an early keeper, and the most common explanation is that the ghost is the child’s mother – or the child herself – searching for the other. The name “Rue” is said to have come from a Ouija board session, reportedly by college students years later. Records of the era list keepers but rarely their families, so the story cannot be checked.

Innkeepers and guests describe her as benign: a figure floating by, items rearranged, a feeling of being watched. She has become part of the identity of one of the most photographed lighthouses in America.

A gray-haired woman in a long gray gown, glimpsed in windows, on the porch steps or floating through rooms; screams, cupboard doors opening, small objects moved or swapped and broken glass swept up overnight – reported by caretakers, workmen, students and B&B guests.

The assistant keepers’ house, especially the attic and its windows, the upstairs rooms and the porch; also the path near the reported child’s grave.

Heceta Head is a fixture of Oregon coast tourism and of lists of America’s haunted lighthouses, and the keepers’ house B&B tells Rue’s story to guests. The lighthouse appears in countless photographs, calendars and films of the Oregon coast.