Point Reyes Lifeboat Rescue Station, 1927

Built in 1927 on a sandy stretch of Drakes Bay, this Coast Guard lifeboat station replaced an earlier lifesaving station on Ten-Mile Beach and was placed in the lee of Point Reyes, where motor lifeboats could be launched in protected water. The complex centers on a two-and-a-half-story wood boathouse with crew quarters upstairs, a launchway with rails and cradles running into the bay, and a two-story officer-in-charge's residence. Garages, a powerhouse, a pumphouse, redwood water tanks and stone retaining walls remain on the hillside. A 36-foot motor lifeboat, built in 1953, is also associated with the site. The station is considered significant as a typical rail-launching station and the only unaltered example of its type on the Pacific Coast. It served shipping along a coastline where more than 30 vessels were lost. The Coast Guard closed it in 1968, and the National Park Service now owns it.