Oregon Coast — Page 4

September 10, 1846: U.S. Naval Schooner Shark Wrecks on Clatsop Spit

September 10, 2011 by Dave Leave a Comment

Cannon Beach Cannon — Cannon From The U.S. Schooner “Shark”

The U.S. Naval Schooner Shark arrived at Astoria in August, 1846 to survey the harbor at the mouth of the Columbia.

On September 10, 1846, upon completion of the mission, she started for Vancouver, but ran aground on the south spit and became a total wreck (Morning Oregonian, 31 July 1899).

All on board got ashore safely, but the sloop soon began to break up. The upper portion came loose from the hull and floated away with her 12 cannon on board. A few days later Richard Hobson was walking down the beach, and directly opposite where the Austin cottage now stands he found the wreck of the Shark, or rather the portion of it that had floated away from the south spit. Three of the cannon were still on board, and he and two Indians who were with him rolled one overboard and well up on the beach. The other two they got overboard, but the returning tide made it impossible to get them ashore. From this incident the beach gradually came to be called Cannon beach.

A cannon from the USS Shark found near Arch Cape gave the town of Cannon Beach its name.

September 8, 1810: Tonquin Sets Sail for the Columbia River

September 8, 2011 by Dave 2 Comments

On September 8, 1810 members of the Astor Expedition departed New York upon the bark Tonquin. Their destination was the Columbia River in the Oregon Country. The expedition’s goal was to establish a home base for John Jacob Astor‘s fur trade business on the Northwest coast.

The Tonquin arrived at the mouth of the Columbia in March the following year. Several attempts to locate a safe channel resulted in the loss of eight crew members, but finally, on March 24, 1811 the Tonquin crossed the bar.

The survivors established about a small settlement, which they named Astoria, about fifteen miles upriver.

September 6, 1936: Yaquina Bay Bridge Opens to Traffic

September 6, 2011 by Dave Leave a Comment

The Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport, Oregon’s crown jewel of socialism,* opened to traffic on Sunday, September 6, 1936 (The Sunday Oregonian, 6 September 1936).

Although almost two months’ work remains to be done on the project, the Yaquina bay bridge will open for traffic Sunday at 8 A. M. More than two years under construction, this span is the last of five to be completed which were designed to eliminate ferries along the Oregon coast highways.

The other bridges, all paid for with a 1934 $5,102,620 Works Progress Administration grant, were the Alsea Bay, Siuslaw River, Umpqua River, and Coos Bay bridges. All the bridges, and several more throughout the state, were designed primarily by Conde B. McCullough, who served as the state bridge engineer from 1919 to 1935. After his death in 1946, the Coos Bay Bridge was renamed Conde McCullough Memorial Bridge.

* So declares Matt Love in his fantastic Love and the Green Lady: Meditations on the Yaquina Bay Bridge: Oregon’s Crown Jewel of Socialism

September 1, 1957: Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, “Terrible Tilly,” is Retired

September 1, 2011 by Dave Leave a Comment

West of Tillamook Head, between Seaside and Cannon Beach, the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse had guarded coastal shipping for 76 years when it was officially closed on September 1, 1957 (The Sunday Oregonian, 1 September 1957).

“Aye, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, and many an eye has danced to see that banner in the sky.”

The ensign of Tillamook Rock lighthouse, often tattered by the winter storms of the Pacific, was hauled down for the last time at sunset Saturday, and the 80,000 candlepower light was to wink its last wink at 12:01 a. m. Sunday as the coast guard shut down the 76-year-old beacon.

Nicknamed Terrible Tilly, the lighthouse was replaced by a red whistle buoy. Keeper Oswald Allik, after he turned off the light for the last time, wrote in the logbook:

Farewell, Tillamook Rock Light Station. An era has ended. With this final entry, and not without sentiment, I return thee to the elements. You, one of the most notorious and yet fascinating of the sea-swept sentinels in the world; long the friend of the tempest-tossed mariner. Through howling gale, thick fog and driving rain your beacon has been a star of hope and your foghorn a voice of encouragement. May the elements of nature be kind to you. For 77 years you have beamed your light across desolate acres of ocean. Keepers have come and gone; men lived and died; but you were faithful to the end. May your sunset years be good years. Your purpose is now only a symbol, but the lives you have saved and the service you have rendered are worthy of the highest respect. A protector of life and property to all, may old-timers, newcomers and travelers along the way pause from the shore in memory of your humanitarian role.

August 19, 1818: Captain James Biddle Retakes Possession of Oregon Country for USA

August 19, 2011 by Dave Leave a Comment

Under orders to to proceed to the Columbia River, with a view to assert on the part of the United States the claim to the sovereignty, by some symbolical or appropriate mode adapted to the occasion, Captain James Biddle anchored at the mouth of the river on August 19, 1818 in the warship Ontario (An Event of One Hundred Years Ago, by T. C. Elliott in The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society Vol. 19, No. 3 – Sep., 1918).

Leaving his vessel at anchor outside the bar Captain Biddle “proceeded in with three boats well armed and manned with more than fifty officers and seamen.” The party landed inside Cape Disappointment on the quiet shore of Baker’s Bay near where the buildings of Fort Canby are now located, and there went through the ceremonies of waving and saluting the American flag (with three cheers), of turning up a sod of earth and nailing a leaden tablet to a tree. Meantime the guns of the sloop roared in salute, the few Chinook Indians who happened to be present looked on in wonder, and the fur traders at Fort George fifteen miles away were suddenly awakened from the monotony of their secluded life.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent (1814) all conditions reverted to status ante bellum, which the Americans interpreted as meaning their claims to the Oregon Country were intact, despite Great Britain’s war-time takeover of Fort Astoria, which they had renamed Fort George. Captain Biddle’s mission was meant to underline the American point of view.

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