Clatsop Spit
Clatsop Spit is a giant sand spit on the Pacific coast lying between Astoria and the north end of Tillamook Head in Clatsop County, northwest Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Clatsop Spit was formed by Columbia River sediment brought to the coast by the river flow after the last ice age ended approximately 8500 years ago and the ocean level rose. Here it worked over and shaped by the wind and the waves until a vast and sandy plain was formed. [1] The name comes from the Clatsop, a small tribe of Chinookan-speaking Native Americans who inhabited an area of the northwestern coast of present-day Oregon from the mouth of the Columbia River south to Tillamook Head in the early 19th century.
The seas around Clatsop Spit were known to be treacherous and there were many shipwrecks, including the paddle steamer General Warren in which 42 people died in the surf in 1852 and in 1859, the schooner Rambler washed up on Clatsop Spit. No trace of her crew was ever found. In 1860, the barque Leonese washed up on Clatsop Spit upside down and her crew lost. In 1883 the crew of the luxury schooner J.C. Cousins operated by the State of Oregon similarly vanished as she washed ashore. Other shipwrecks include the barquentine Makah (1888), and the bark Peter Iredale in 1906. It is estimated that since 1800 more than 2,000 vessels and close to 1,000 lives have been lost.[2]
Clatsop Spit is now part of Fort Stevens State Park.[3]
See also
Notes
- ^ Roadside Geology of Oregon (18th Ed. ed.). Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Company. 2004. pp. pp. 82-85. ISBN 0-87842-063-0.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help);|pages=has extra text (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ "Graveyard of the Pacific: Shipwrecks on the Washington Coast". www.historylink.org. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
- ^ "Point Adams, Oregon". Retrieved 2007-07-13.