Cape Disappointment - Lighthouses and Jetty

Friday was our field trip to the Southern tip of the Long Beach peninsula to Cape Disappointment, a part of Lewis and Clark's trail. We had driven down there on Wednesday but it was very foggy. Friday was cloudy but at least we could see.

In 1788, British fur trader John Meares named the area Cape Disappointment after his inability to locate the river’s mouth.

Cape Disappointment lighthouse (left) is the oldest functioning lighthouse on the West coast.

This is the North Point lighthouse. I thought of you, Hib Casselberry!

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The jetty is at the mouth of the Columbia river. We were flabbergasted as we looked at the unbelievably large rocks that formed this LONG jetty, especially since it was started in 1885!! It took 30 years to get it to stabilize the channel.

Here's what they did: First, a trestle was built with a railroad track out over the area where they wanted the jetty. They brought the rock by barge, then loaded it onto railroad cars.
The railroad cars were designed so that they could dump the rocks from both sides. The trestle track is still under the jetty.

We thought this was simple and simply brilliant!!