Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon

By David Krogh

Not many people in Portland may be aware that a thriving community once was located on the Tillamook Spit and called Bayocean. Erosion, storms and the Army Corps of Engineers have all contributed to erase Bayocean from existence, except in old photos, historical documents and a few site signs. But Bayocean lives again in Portland author Jerry Sutherland’s new book Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon.
The Tillamook Spit was at one time the home of the Tillamook Indians. Although fur traders visited the area throughout the 1700s, the first recorded interaction was when Captain Robert Gray sailed his ship, the Lady Washington, into Tillamook Bay in 1788. Disease took its toll on the Tillamooks, who vacated the spit by the 1850s, but left middens and the ruins of longhouses and huts.
Then in 1906, a well to do Portlander named T. Irving Potter visited the site and hatched the idea of turning the spit into a grand resort development. His father, T. Benton Potter, was a successful subdivision developer and supported the notion of developing the Tillamook Spit, given it was the closest ocean beach to a growing Portland. Potter bought up the entire spit except for the tip. Concurrently, a train line from Portland to Tillamook was under construction along with a county road from Tillamook to Cape Meares.
Potter’s plans morphed into a “Grand Resort” consisting of residential lots (called Bayocean Park), a Natatorium, large hotel, recreation building, a dock for boats arriving from across Tillamook Bay, a yacht for transporting visitors across Tillamook Bay to and from the site and other features. Potter’s realty company produced a multipage brochure advertising “Bayocean: The Playground of the Pacific Northwest.” What sounded too good to be true was about to go through a terrible evolutionary process.
Over the course of the next 40 years, Bayocean experienced access problems which resulted in many lot purchasers reneging on their purchases, leading to foreclosures and litigation. In addition, poor site management and lack of adequate funds for development resulted in loss of revenue and receivership. The Potters left the scene, to be replaced by others who still held the dream of a “Grand Resort.” The Army Corps of Engineers proceeded in 1914 to construct a north jetty for the protection of the Tillamook Bay ocean access. However, they did not include a south jetty construction due to budget reasons although they had initially recommended it. In the meantime, several homes and other buildings were constructed on the spit.
In 1921, 25 students from Reed College spent several months on the spit studying resort management and both running and repairing Bayocean’s resort facilities. Although their assistance was valuable, the resort still lost revenue.
By the mid 1920s the spit had started to erode due to the unbalanced littoral sand movement caused by the Corps’ construction of just one jetty. The obstinacy of Corps personnel that the erosion was natural and not their doing did not help the situation. The first house was taken by the sea in 1927 and before long the spit was being breached by storms, temporarily turning the spit into an island. The rest is history and is discussed in great detail within the book.
Events in the book are especially well documented. And if the discussion of litigation early seems overly complex, subsequent events involving the Bayocean development and spit erosion are more straight forward and extremely interesting to follow. “In 1907, Bayocean Park was promoted as the grandest resort on the Pacific Northwest Coast,” according to Sutherland. But by 1960, “none of the 59 dwellings built on the spit remain.” In short, Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon provides a unique opportunity to observe the birth and demise of an entire community within the timeline of approximately 50 years.
An avid hiker, Sutherland began his research in 2014 after a visit to the Tillamook Spit and in 2015 started posting his findings at bayocean.net. He was discovered by Grant McOmie (of KGW’s “Grants Getaways”), who sought his experience for a TV episode about Bayocean. Subsequently, he was contacted by OPB and participated in an Oregon Fieldguide episode “The Lost City of Bayocean,” which aired in January 2020 (and is available to watch on YouTube). As part of his book research, he was able to interview nine of Bayocean’s former residents.
This is Sutherland’s second book. His first, Calvin Tibbets: Oregon’s First Pioneer, was published in 2016. To learn more about Sutherland, visit amazon.com/stores/author/B01LJUM1T2/about and for additional information about his research for this book and upcoming events, visit bayocean.net.
Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon is published by Beaver State Press. The book is available online at Amazon.com and at Belmont Books (on SE Belmont) and Powell’s Books (SE Hawthorne).

Photo: Author Jerry Sutherland.

Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon

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