After funding cuts in 2009, the Santa Cruz Surfing Club Preservation Society and private donations kept the museum open.

[8][9] A plaque was dedicated to the princes: David Kawānanakoa, Edward Abnel Keliʻiahonui, and Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole (later a delegate to US Congress) in April 2010.

The original lighthouse was one of a number of California coastal lights allocated funding by Congress in 1850, only 19 days after statehood.

[12] The original light was a two-story wooden structure, with a lantern housing a fifth-order Fresnel lens.

Around 1909 [13] (sources vary, possibly 1913[12]) the lens was replaced with a fourth-order Fresnel, for better visibility against the light of the city.