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• Owls Head State Park

Owls Head State Park - a popular small state park for photographing, beachcombing, and Maine coastal scenery

When you visit the Owls Head State Park, you obviously need to see the Owls Head Light. By the order of presiding President John Quincy Adams, Green & Foster and Jeremiah Barry designed the lighthouse to aid in the lime transportation industry in 1826. The lighthouse was built to help guide ships safely into Rockland Harbor as lime was being produced in large quantities and required immediate and safe exportation to other parts of the country.

Winslow Lewis Lamps and Reflectors initially installed this lighthouse that still works today. The keeper’s house was built as a separate building in 1854. In 1856, the Owls Head Light was upgraded and installed with a fourth order Fresnel lens, one of the few remaining in use in Maine. The boathouse and the fog signal building were removed when the lighthouse was automated in 1989. The keeper’s house, walkways, oil house, and generator building still remain.

The best time to see the Owls Head Light is at night. The light from the fourth order Fresnel lens can be seen for over 16 miles. Although the lighthouse itself is comparatively small (standing at only 30 feet) for the region, it is built upon a rock formation that shoots 70 feet in the air. This creates the illusion that this lighthouse is 100 feet tall.

Visitors can climb the wooden stairs to the lighthouse and oil house to get a first-hand look, but most other areas are prohibited for public viewing, including the actual lighthouse and keeper’s house (still in use by Coast Guard personnel). However, visitors can certainly angle themselves to get fantastic pictures of accessible areas. For example, people can stand on the long wooden steps leading up to the lighthouse for great views and shots of Rockland Harbor.

If you are sensitive to sound, please note that the fog whistle is operational and may sound off in fog conditions every 20 seconds. In addition to lighthouse gazing, the park is a popular spot for photographing, beachcombing, and watching wildlife. Owls Head State Park also features a small, old cemetery on the park property. Parking spaces are available and the grounds are open to the public. There are also public restrooms near the parking lot. This historical and nautical site is well worth an afternoon visit.

We would like to thank Robert English for granting us permission to use his images of Owls Head Light. You can view more images of Owls Head Light and Maine Lighthouses by visitng Robert's Flickr page.