The interest of seafarers since the Middle Ages by this strategic point of the coast, in addition to the danger confirmed by the shipwreck numbers, favored the decision to install a lighthouse in the areas of Cabo Vilán.
It was contemplated the possibility of a lighthouse of fourth order destined to signal the estuary of Camariñas.
The project for the lighthouse was commissioned in 1851 to the engineer Alejandro de Olavarría.
In the architectural solution and location that made the lighthouse made a tremendous mistake by not taking into account in the budget the demolition of the Cape promontory that would partially obscure the light. Without removing the obstacle, this light was concealed in a sector of 21º precisely towards the place of the most dangerous low.
The projects to correct the mistake and to construct a new lighthouse began in 1855 but they would not be approved until 1885, being entrusted to the engineers Francisco Lirazága and Adolfo Small the elaboration of the project.
It is in 1896 that the electric lighthouse of Vilán with its octagonal format, resembling some of the most important French lighthouses, begins to function becoming the first electrified lighthouse of Spain and one of the first of Europe with a range of 28 miles.
Curiosities, myths and legends
On November 18, 1965, the Moroccan ship "Barona" sowed oranges with the horns of the Horn, no less than 1600 Tm. The beach of Camariñas had to be cleaned twice: once when the ship was shipwrecked and another when the people rotted oranges at home. It is also said that pharmacies made extra orders of astringents.
They also say that a professor was crouched on a stone by a box of the rich reddish oranges when a woman came out of his back and dressed as he went into the sea and carried it in his very noses.
