One unique story out here is the story of Bayocean. The tiny strip or "spit" of land between the Pacific Ocean and Tillamook Bay. This little area sparked some investors' interests in the early 1900s and long story short-ish, (because click that link for deets), they built up this whole resort town with a hotel, fancy pool, bowling alley, tennis courts, dance hall... a full set up for such a tiny town. It sounded like a blast for the wealthy to come vacation here (with quite the excursion to make it here at that time with lack of roads, trains, boat troubles). The one name to share is F.D. Mitchell, the guy that put all his heart and soul (and investments) into this resort, only to have it totally destroyed by nature. The homes, hotels, store... everything is totally gone now. And it looks like this!
The unfortunate thing is this F.D. needed a north and south jetty put in to protect the spit from the water coming out from the bar into the ocean and make boat passage easier. For whatever reason, (maybe these people just wanted his plan to fail) they agreed to building a north jetty, which caused more damage to the spit. When he pushed for the south jetty again, they instead added onto the north jetty... not what they needed. So, of course, it continued to degrade. The last house fell in 1960. Years after everything was gone and F.D. Mitchell had died most unfortunately in a mental hospital, they built the dang south jetty. And they very quickly saw the land start to build up again. A big palm to the face on that one.
Walking around this park I always try to take myself back and imagine this lively town of Bayocean, all the fun that people had coming to vacation and dance... Then to look up and see what nature can do.
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