Dug out of the archives: Dramatic news photo of Graves Light shipwreck

'Storm administers coup de grace' is the news caption on this original 1938 photo from the archives of the San Francisco Examiner. We acquired the original from the Examiner archives.

‘Storm administers coup de grace’ is the news caption on this original 1938 photo from the archives of the San Francisco Examiner. We acquired the original from the Examiner archives.

The reverse of the 1938 news photo of the 'coup de grace' sinking of the SS City of Salisbury. This International News Photo is an original print from the archives of the San Francisco Examiner.

The reverse of the 1938 news photo of the ‘coup de grace’ sinking of the SS City of Salisbury. This International News Photo is an original print from the archives of the San Francisco Examiner.

While rooting through old news archives, we found an original wire service photo of the sinking of the SS City of Salisbury, with Graves Light in the background.

We don’t mind posting pictures of this wreck, because nobody was hurt. So we’re particularly excited with our new find, which we acquired from the archives of the San Francisco Examiner.

Posted here is the original photo, and an image of the reverse, with the commentary from the International News wire service.

Share Button

Cleanup begins

Graves bucketThere’s quite a bit of cleanup work to do at Graves Light, not all of which is visible.

Among the big chores: What to do about the two 1500-gallon cisterns that occupy much of the first 40 feet of the lighthouse.

One of the cisterns held fresh water for the lighthouse keepers. The other one held compressed air for the fog horn, and was later used to store oil or kerosene.

We brought some buckets and rope up to the lighthouse to start cleanup, and found some oil at the bottom of one of the cisterns. We removed the oil in buckets, hauled it to the mainland by boat, and disposed of it safely at an oil recycling site. Now we have to scrub down the interior of the cisterns, break up the oil residue, and we’ll be done.

Share Button

Nah, we’re not really going to do this. . .

Hilltop at Graves?We’re not really going to move the giant Hilltop steakhouse sign from Saugus to The Graves.

We were just having a little fun with PhotoShop.

No worries.

 

Share Button

Harbor seals call Graves Ledge home

Boston’s harbor seals love the stone ledges around Graves Light.

 

 

 

Share Button

Welcome to the Keeper’s Blog

Graves rockscapeThis is the Keeper’s Blog of Graves Light.

Most of GravesLightStation.com will feature pages arranged by topic.

All the news updates will be here on the Keeper’s Blog, which is loosely connected with our Graves Light Facebook page.

 

Share Button