Mario Mazzamuto
SF Bay Real Estate Appraisal Services
December 7, 2016
At the dawn of commercial aviation, eighty-eight years ago, the Standard Oil company build a network of navigation light beacons across the country to aid pilots traversing the nation. Mount Diablo stood out from the Northern California landscape, and was selected for the final tower in the project...
Events on December 7th, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy”, darkened the light beacon. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 Americans, and put the United States on war footing. To protect the coast from nighttime aerial attack, war-time blackout rules applied to every home, office, factory, and especially a blazing navigation beacon atop a mountain. The light was extinguished. After the war, advances in radar and radio telemetry made the beacon obsolete, and it fell in to disrepair.
It was turned on again in 1964 after Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Pacific commander in WWII, suggested that it be ceremonially turned on again every Dec. 7th honor those who lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was restored back to service, and ignited annually since...
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