The need for a lighthouse was a direct consequence of the rise of one of the most important Galician industries of the s. XIX, the ceramic factories of Sargadelos located in Cervo. It was necessary to drive the mineral fuel and raw materials so we addressed the construction of a road and the modernization of the port. With the increasing traffic became evident the necessity of a lighthouse in the port what was concreted in placing in tip Atalaia of San Cibrao a lighthouse of sixth order.
The project was commissioned in 1861 to Marcelo Sánchez Movellán carrying out a design very similar to that of Pancha Island. On May 30 in 1864 he began to light with a white light oil lamp and 9 miles range. In 1925 Rafael de la Cerda projects a new tower.
The increase in maritime traffic now provoked by the Spanish Alúmina of San Cibrao factory requires an improvement of the conditions of the lighthouse. A new one similar to the one of Pancha Island was constructed with a black upper band and painted white of 13,70 meters of height and 3 meters in diameter. It enters into service the 22 of December of 1983 with a white light that reaches 20 miles.
Curiosities, myths and legends
In 1967 as can be read in the legend of the granite pedestal of the Monument to the Navy in the Beach of O Torno in San Ciprian, Don Manuel Fraga, Minister of Information and Tourism, inaugurated the monument promoted by the fishermen's guild of the town . History is not without success.
With the living tides of 1965 a World War II war mine entered the San Ciprian estuary until it was stranded on the beach of O Torno. "As the one who does not know is like the one who does not see", at the exit of the school the children would play with her without suspecting that it was operative.
The authorities of the Navy were informed that after their examination they proceeded to deactivate it and inform the lucky ones that it could have exploded at any moment.
