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The Westport Maritime Museum, a former Coast Guard Station, was dedicated as a life saving station in 1940. It was designed in accordance with the Nantucket architecture standards of the Coast Guard. It is a 18-room station with three stories, six gables, a Watchtower with a widow's walk, and 2-foot thick basement walls. Exhibits on beach-combing, ocean currents, beach erosion, shipwrecks, community history, rescue operations, cranberry harvesting, logging, the destruction island lens and the whaling industry can be visited.
The Westport Maritime Museum is located in a five building complex in the Marina District of Westport. The complex is the former U.S. Coast Guard station, which was completed in 1940 and operated as Station Grays Harbor until 1972 when a new facility was built several blocks south.
The original building are registered as historic buildings, with the State of Washington. The Westport South Beach Historical Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to [reserving and interpreting the history of the South Beach, operates the museum and the Grays Harbor Lighthouse.
The fifth building was added in 1998 to house the magnificent Destruction Island Lens The Lens was built in France in 1888 by Henry Le Paute from the design by the developer Augustine Fresnel and shipped by boat to Destruction Island. The lens was installed in the lighthouse in 1891 and operated until 1995 when it was replace by an automatic device.
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