Oregon History...
Oregon's Coastal Legacy

From the Editor: Oregon History can put our life into perspective especially when we "think" we are having a rough time.

The early settlers who carved out the segment of Oregon's History so we could live as we are today, endured through many hardships.

Hardships were a way of life, yet what remains is a beautiful piece of history...places that we can relic in and enjoy for ourselves and generations to come.

Oregon History...

Willamette Valley residents make the pilgrimage to honor a rare jewel; a drive to the coast will delight the senses with panoramic views of the wild sea, it's pounding thunder and the breeze suffused with invigorating freshness. The beachcomber, walking barefoot through gliding surf, is reunited with the cradle of life, completing a circle that began at the dawn of time. There is the sense of being a player in the ancient theatre of history.

Native inhabitants passed on legends to coastal pioneers about shipwrecks and castaways that lived with the tribes centuries ago. Stories of buried treasure at Neahkahnie and a fabulous lost gold mine in the northern Coast Range added to the mystery. On the southern Oregon Coast was the legendary city Quivira. Ancient clues are still being revealed in the sand, of Spanish galleons and Oriental junks cast adrift, of explorations untold.

Oregon's beach has been used as a traveling route since prehistoric times, and there is poetic completeness in the modern vision of this legacy. Early settlers crossed the rocky promontories using Indian trails. At Hug Point, between Arcadia Beach and Arch Cape, a roadway was carved into the base of the headland, allowing travel at high tide. Incredibly, this feature has survived intact after more than 80 years. Other sections of pioneer roadway live on, converted to the Oregon Coast Trail at Cape Perpetua and the Yachats 804 Trail.

The tunnel at Oceanside is a childhood memory of good times on the beach. It allowed easy access to the beach north of Maxwell Point. Frequently blocked by rock fall, it eventually had to be closed. In old home movies, grinning beachcombers still pour from the tunnel mouth. Travel around the point is possible at low tide.

North of Newport's Nye Beach is the rapidly disappearing Jump-Off Joe. It was once an enormous sandstone headland with an arch connecting Agate Beach with Nye Beach. The study of its erosion has become course material for geology students around the world. The inexorable transformation of Jump-Off Joe has been documented in many photographs over the last century. Low rocky ridges on the beach give little hint of the remarkable flat-topped archway that fascinated the artists and writers of Nye Beach. The foundation remaining on the bluff is an uncompleted condominium that had to be abandoned because of erosion in the 1980's. The name Jump-Off Joe has been applied to many features in Oregon and Washington.

There is nothing but the sound of the wind and waves at the site of Bayocean. Boasting amenities ahead of its time, Bayocean was promoted as the Atlantic City of the West. It was built on the Tillamook peninsula, which was breached by winter storms after the completion of a single jetty on Tillamook Bay that unbalanced the movement of sand on the spit. Its heyday was from 1912 to 1932, with some residents hanging on until 1952, when Bayocean became an island. The developer of Bayocean, T. B. Potter, disappeared without a trace. The construction of a south jetty returned the sand to the peninsula, which now has a trail through the site of Bayocean.

Near Neskowin's Proposal Rock is an area of coastline that sank during an earthquake, and was covered over by sand that periodically shifts to reveal an ancient forest. Imagine it in your camera's viewfinder, with a wisp of fog and the arch of Proposal Rock, awash in the magic of Oregon's coastline. Ever changing, it remains an enigmatic gift to future generations.

Oregon History...

J.D. Adams: j1mcm0s@earthlink.net

May the Oregon History live on for generations to come...

-The Editorial Staff

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