[4] Eventually a lifesaving station was built immediately to the east.

In 1889 the area was renamed Willapa Bay after a local tribe.

[4] The entrance to the bay is extremely unstable, and the sandy cape on which the lighthouse stood was steadily eroded away.

[4] It was succeeded by various towers, but relentless erosion caused discontinuance of the light between 1991 and 1993.

[5][6] The same erosion also claimed some four square miles of North Cove, Washington, on the coast adjacent to the lighthouse, as well as the lifesaving station.