Judy Bittner, State Historic Preservation Officer, has received notice from the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places that Five Finger Light Station, northwest of Petersburg in Southeast Alaska, was added to the list May 12, 2004. The National Register is the nation s catalog of over 77,000 significant historic properties worthy of preservation.

Five Finger Light Station is one of sixteen staffed lighthouses established in Alaska by the U.S. Government during the early 1900s. Located at the entrance to Stephens Passage, south of Juneau and north of Petersburg, the light began operating on March 1, 1902. It and Sentinel Island Light Station north of Juneau were the first U.S. lighthouses built in Alaska. The concrete lighthouse at the site today, built in 1935 after the original wood frame building burned, is a good example of Art Deco architecture, popular in the 1930s, used in government buildings. The Coast Guard stopped assigning keepers to Five Finger Light Station in 1984 and automated the light. Earlier this year, the Coast Guard transferred ownership of the buildings to the nonprofit Juneau Lighthouse Association.

Five Finger Light Station joins other Alaska lighthouses listed in the National Register--Cape St. Elias, Eldred Rock, Cape Spencer, Sentinel Island, Guard Island, and Pt. Retreat. They are part of the Light Stations of the United States, a comprehensive historic study of lighthouses in the United States prepared by the U.S. Coast Guard to comply with historic preservation laws.

Information about the National Register of Historic Places program is available from the Office of History and Archaeology, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, 550 West 7th Ave., Suite 1310, Anchorage AK 99501, phone 907-269-8721, or you may e-mail your questions to the OHA .