Cape Blanco juts out one and a half miles into the Pacific Ocean from Oregon's southern coast. At the end of the cape is a large headland with 200-foot cliffs along most of its perimeter. These chalky cliffs prompted early Spanish explorers to name this landmark, which is the most westerly point in Oregon, Cape Blanco or White Cape. In 1980, the lighthouse was automated. Twelve years later, two local teenagers broke into the lighthouse and with a sledgehammer smashed one of the lens' bull's-eyes and six smaller prisms. The boys were eventually apprehended and convicted. After a nation-wide search, Larry Hardin of Hardin Optical Company in nearby Bandon was selected to repair the lens. By the spring of 1994, the lens had been repaired using Corning Pyrex, at a cost of $80,000.