Point Pinos Lighthouse has been operating continuously since 1 February 1855, making it the oldest working lighthouse on the West Coast. It stands at the tip of the Monterey Peninsula, where the name has been the same since 1602, when Spanish explorer Vizcaíno came ashore, noted the vast pine forest, and recorded it as Point of the Pines.

Robert Louis Stevenson visited regularly in the 1870s, befriending keeper Allen Luce and later writing about a man found playing piano, making bows and arrows, painting sunrises in oils, and pursuing a dozen other elegant interests. Luce's successor, Emily Fish, was meticulous at the lamp and celebrated as the "Socialite Keeper" for her parties on the grounds.

VoiceMap's Pacific Grove driving tour passes the lighthouse while tracing the town's arc from Methodist tent camp to cultural capital of the West, placing Point Pinos in the wider story of this quietly extraordinary peninsula.