US 101 is the main focus for would-be tourists to Oregon. The Oregon coastline is truly spectacular. The Oregon Coast Highway provides the main access for those wishing to see the magic. Driving the length of the magnificent road gives one an excellent window into the wildness, beauty and changeability of a unique environment.
THE ROAD
There was no route along the Oregon Coast until well into the 20th century. The headlands providing the scenic drama served to isolate separate sections of the coastline. Beaches actually served as roads until the road Came in. Hug Point just south of Cannon Beach the perfect example. Travel only possible at high tide.
The highway made the list of main routes listed by Oregon’s new highway engineer, Henry Bowlby, in 1913. Listing a route is not the same as building it. The Coast Highway would not complete until the 1940’s and beyond though the basics were in place much earlier. Other road projects like the Columbia River Gorge, Lower Columbia River and the Pacific Highway took precedence before the Coast.
Proposed versus actual – note the road between Marshfield and Scottsburg via Allegany. This road abandoned today at Golden and Silver Falls State Park.
Highway funding remained an obscure art before the Federal government got involved. Counties and maybe states were responsible for all of the funding and construction. The route finalized in 1914, with only three major changes in preceding years.
Bowlby would not see the completion of the route. Funding was first hoped to be shared between State bonds which were passed in 1919 and the federal government. The Feds were not quick to grab the ball following the “normalcy” following World War One. So, the State instituted a one cent per gallon tax on gasoline. That innovation quickly repeated in other States – all forty-eight by the end of the next decade. Roadwork intensified with more funding in the 1920’s.
Unlike the other two States of the Left Coast, Oregon’s portion of US 101 extends on a much more significant portion of the State’s actual coastline. California featured areas along the southern California coast, but very little elsewhere. US 101 touches the Washington coast in very few spots. It does a dramatic job, however, along Hood Canal, which technically belongs to the coast.
Building the Road
Macadam was a popular method of paving sections of the road early on. Macadam involved crushed rock and gravel to surface a road. The method was used along the coast until 1921. Some areas used planking – basically, timber laid across the roadbed. Concrete was used next along with other paving systems – warrenite, asphaltic concrete.
The oldest bridge built for the highway was over West Beaver Creek in Tillamook County. Built by the county in 1914, with widening in 1935. It is unremarkable except for a graceful arch of formed concrete hidden underneath the bridge deck.
By 1931, the highway was paved between Astoria and Neskowin. Rock or gravel used from there to Kernville – Part of Lincoln City today. Paved road extended then further south to Newport from where rock or gravel extended to Cape Perpetua. To Florence, the route was still rough and unimproved, and things were still difficult further south to Reedsport. Then, from Reedsport to the California border, the route was either paved or gravel. Ferries still needed to cross at Yaquina Bay, Alsea Bay, Siuslaw and Umpqua Rivers and again at Coos Bay. The Rogue River Bridge had just completed in 1930 using seven reinforced concrete deck arches. Conde McCullough was the lead bridge engineer.
ferries to bridges
The ferry crossings were acquired by the State in 1927. They were made free to cross with the intention to build the bridges developed in the middle 1930’s. The bridges became more needed as highway construction increased traffic along the coast. The bridges represent the high point in the 1919-1935 career of McCullough as State Bridge Engineer. He and his small team designed six hundred bridges all over Oregon, but the big six crossings along the Coast remain his best known.
YOUNGS BAY
Locals were hoping the federal government would make Youngs Bay into a major port. The Feds passed on the opportunity. The Port of Astoria dredged the bay in 1919. However, the plans for a port to rival the upriver Portland never came to much. Clatsop County set a precedent along the Coast for being the first to complete paving in 1914. Next, came the completion of the Youngs Bay Bridge 1919-1921. The bridge designed by McCullough and his team – was the first major bay crossing along the route. It was the first McCullough bridge on the Coast with another seventeen to go.
Here is also the first major deviation between old US 101 and the newer route. The old route – Business 101 today, crosses the bay at a narrower point. The road prior to this involved a long detour around the bay crossing both the Youngs and Lewis and Clark Rivers – you can do this route combining the Nehalem Highway – Oregon Route 202 – with the Youngs River Road circling back to the old Warrenton-Astoria highway just south of the bridge. Business 101 rejoins the newer route near the Walmart-Costco-Home Depot center just west of the rebuilt Fort Clatsop.
The newer bay bridge dates to 1964 shaving off a few more miles and curves to drive. The old bridge used a bascule lift system while the new bridge uses a vertical lift section. This is the only bridge on the Coast Highway with a vertical lift section except for a bridge crossing the Coquille River far to the south.
NORTHERN HEADLANDS
The headlands which provide such scenic beauty also imposed engineering problems to be overcome. Mount Neahkahnie, lying between Cannon Beach and Tillamook, proved a difficult nut to crack until the road carved through the cliff faces in the early 1940’s. Tillamook Head, Cascade Head, Cape Perpetua and the headlands of Coos and Curry Counties all needed extensive work. Work requiring alterations in some cases over the succeeding years.
In 1913, responding to the need for roads to reach coastal communities isolated from one another, Governor Oswald West signed a bill making beaches a public right-of-way up to the high tide mark. Beaches were a start. Those headlands still got in the way, even the smaller ones. Of these, Hug Point is probably the most well-known spot.
Wide beaches reach south from Tillamook Head past Cannon Beach over six miles to Arch Cape, a remote community at the end of a wagon road from Seaside. The hamlet sported a post office as early as 1891 with weekly mail delivery. Arch Cape was where the original cannon from the USS Shark came ashore after its sinking attempting to cross the Columbia River bar in 1846. Leading to this quick aside …
Tillamook Head
The headland of Tillamook Head rears into the sea interrupting the twenty-mile-long wide expanse of beach lying south of the mouth of the Columbia River. Those beaches pick up again a couple of miles to the south at the edge of the magnificent Ecola State Park. Ecola Park is home to countless photographs and paintings. The views are most spectacular in the late afternoon, but worth a visit at any time.
There is a trail – 6.3 miles with elevation gain of 1350 feet. It runs over the headland connecting Seaside to the north with the park. There are not a lot of views as the trail goes deep in the forest. The trail sees a lot of mud even during the dry summer. It is part of the Oregon Coast Trail.
Cannon Beach was originally named Elk Creek. The community was connected by a road of sorts over the east side of Tillamook Head to Seaside. This village became the center of the area gaining a post office of its own in 1910 named Ecola. In 1922, the community renamed itself Cannon Beach because the Post Department kept confused Ecola with Eola, Oregon.
Homesteaders found their way into the Cannon Beach – Arch Cape area in the late 19th century. A trail of sorts ran around the east side of the headlands. The path became a road featuring 111 curves over its muddy length. Elk Creek Hotel opened in 1892. The first of several road reconstructions began in 1904. Road construction still a problem for the locals and the county at the time. More hotels slowly came in as the beauty of Elk Creek gained a wider audience.
Cannons from the Shark
Wreckage from the ship scattered about for seventy-five miles of the coastline. After hearing from local Native Americans of guns washing ashore south of Tillamook Head, a midshipman from the Shark came to inspect. He found a section of the starboard deck with three of the “carronades”. Carronades were short squat cannons created for in-close fighting, like the effect of a sawed-off shotgun. The Shark carried eight of these squat cannons, four on each broadside. One of the little cannons – weighing nearly a ton – was pulled up above the high-water mark. The other two stayed where they lay because of heavy surf. Without a road, the cannon recovered was too heavy to transport, so it stayed where it lay.
The high-water mark proved to be not so high. Tides soon covered up the lone recovered gun. Locals finally rediscovered the cannons in 1898. With a team of horses, they pulled one off the shore while the other two were lost. The lone gun was placed next to the Arch Cape post office. The cannon moved over to the new US 101 bypass above Cannon Beach in 1956. Because of repeated vandalism and the possibility of theft, the gun presently onsite is a replica. The original placed in the Cannon Beach Museum after restoration.
In 2007, two additional cannons were found also near Arch Cape hidden on the beaches looking like encrusted rocks. The two guns – restored at Texas A&M – today found at the Columbia Maritime Museum in Astoria.
Hug Point
Beach was the only road in the early 20th century between Cannon Beach and the post office at Arch Cape. Clatsop County built a road around Hug Point, a small headland sticking inconveniently out into the sea just above Arch Cape. The “road” proved still dangerous and only useable at low tide. The roadbed was improved upon in 1928 complete with a macadam surface significantly eroded today. It is still possible to walk the old roadbed, but only at low tide.
Neahkahnie Mountain
County roads by 1930 extended south in Clatsop County to Arch Cape and in Tillamook County to Manzanita and Nehalem. The counties asked for support from State to complete the 7.5-mile gap while they maintained the Necanicum road as county roads. They also agreed to give A million dollars each spread out over several years to help complete the route. In 1930, the State agreed to take over the effort though it required another decade to finalize the road.
Between 1934 and 1941 the Cannon Beach route improved. Bridges were built over Necarney and Short Sand Beach Creeks – both within Oswald West State Park today. A tunnel cut through Arch Cape – one of two along the Coast Highway.
The Necarney Creek Bridge is 85 feet above the wooded creek below. Built in 1937, this designed by McCullough’s successor, Glenn Paxson. At the same time. The Chasm Bridge on the south face of Neahkahnie was constructed with concrete masonry and railings. Construction impressively added to the magnificent scenic nature of the Neahkahnie Mountain cliffs and views. The bridges and road around the cliffs of Neahkahnie opened in 1941 saving almost six miles and countless curves over the Necanicum route.
Neahkahnie Mountain and the Arch Cape Tunnel
Headlands around Cape Falcon and Mount Neahkahnie to the south of Cannon Beach, presented a significantly more difficult engineering problem for road builders. The Oregon Coast Highway began life as a proposed route of the forerunner of Oregon’s present Department of Transportation in 1914. Construction work at this early stage was carried out by the counties with some help from the State Highway Engineer office headed by Henry Bowlby. He ran afoul of politics and cost overruns, but Clatsop County went ahead with the construction of the road.
The highway became the Roosevelt Coast Military Highway in hopes of attracting federal funds to a project also fitting a potential defense need considering the World War. State bonds and a new gas tax helped with the construction. Some money eventually did come west from Washington, DC, as well, from the Bureau of Public Roads.
The road dropped the “Military” from the title shortly after the federal funds evaporated. The “Roosevelt” became replaced by “Oregon” in 1931 – Oregon Coast Highway.
With the particular geological difficulties presented by the coastline south of Arch Cape, road engineers pushed the simpler named Roosevelt Coast Highway inland from Seaside. The road to Cannon Beach and Arch Cape remained a simple county dead end road. Pushing up from Seaside along the Necanicum River turning south at Hamlet. Here, the road winded up Bergsvik Creek, over a pass following Soapstone Creek down to the North Fork of the Nehalem River. This section of the road was well-known for its curves, still retained in today’s Oregon route 53. The route continued down into the widening Nehalem valley to the little towns of Mohler and Wheeler.
Southern Tillamook County
From the south edge of Nehalem Bay, the route turned south through the subdivisions eventually coalescing into Rockaway Beach – quick note: Some write Rockaway Beach was built by the Rockaway Beach Company of New York. While it is true, one of the subdivisions was named after that beach in New York (another subdivision is named Manhattan Beach), but the land was platted by local individuals in 1909.
From Rockaway, the road follows the east edge of Tillamook Bay through the towns of Garibaldi and Bay City to Tillamook – passing the ever-popular Tillamook Cheese factory with its ice cream lines. There were some efforts to build a road across the mouth of Tillamook Bay, but the route stays inland for the next forty miles missing the Three Capes – Meares, Lookout and Kiwanda – to the west. The more recent and slower, Three Capes Scenic Route, tries to make up for Coast Highway’s bypass – food for another post.
An aside, there were several proposals for more bridges across bays meaning sand spits used. Nehalem Bay and Nestucca Bay two examples where environmentalists held off the engineers.
cascade head
Touching the beach briefly at Neskowin, Cascade Head – finished to Neskowin by 1923 – rears itself in the way of the highway. Another ten-mile retreat to the east over the forested hills again. The ten miles used to be longer going further up the Neskowin Creek valley twisting and turning its way up Slab Creek and down along Deer Creek crossing the Salmon River at Otis where it joined Oregon route 18 and back to today’s US 101 through the multiple towns of Lincoln City. Passing through the northernmost section of the Siuslaw National Forest, some funding was provided by the Federal government in addition to funding from Tillamook and Lincoln counties.
OTTER CREST
In Lincoln County, US 101 roughly follows original routes built in the 1920’s. The route follows close to the coastline missing only the little headlands of Yaquina Head and Otter Crest. The old route along Otter Crest – signed as Otter Crest Loop – can still be followed. Here stands one of three reinforced deck arch bridges from the era of Conde McCullough. Named today for local politician Ben Jones, an important local figure who gained support for the coastal highway.
The bridge – 1927 – features open spandrels, arched curtain walls, paired arch ribs with decorative railings complete with classic and gothic details shouting McCullough. One of the other two of these particular style bridges you find just north crossing the entrance of Depoe Bay – 1927 – in dramatic fashion. The third of these bridges lies far to the north crossing Soapstone Creek – 1928 – on the now abandoned section cruised by today’s Oregon 53 from Necanicum to Wheeler.
The Otter Crest Loop section, bypassed in 1955, visits the Cape Foulweather Lookout Observatory and Gift Shop tourist stop 500 feet above the seas below. Cape Foulweather was the first point on the northwestern coast sighted by Captain James Cook in March 1778. Views to the south are very impressive though not quite as wild as before the condominium complex of Otter Crest built up in the 1970’s. The loop continues past Devil’s Punchbowl off the road in the older community of Otter Rock.
CAPE PERPETUA AND THE HALF-MILLION-DOLLAR MILE HIGHWAY
The coastline south of Yachats ran through federal land – Siuslaw National Forest. That meant the responsible construction agency fell to the federal Bureau of Public Roads. Here, there was considerable participation with the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930’s. The CCC worked in other areas of the coast outside of the federal zone – state parks were especially grateful for the workers and funds. Atop Cape Perpetua is a wonderful stone overlook watching over one of the favorite areas of the coast. Winds howl atop the 800-foot-high headland – highest viewpoint reachable by car on the coastline.
The USFS built a narrow road in 1914 with a wooden bridge across the Yachats River opening travel between Yachats and Florence to the south. That bridge replaced by a steel bridge in 1926, with the rest of this section of the highway refinished in the 1930’s.
Building between the Heceta Head Lighthouse past the Sea Lion Caves was the most expensive mile of road construction in the US involving the BPA. The section involved the magnificent 1932 Cape Creek bridge combining an open-spandrel rib-type reinforced concrete deck arch with a double decked approach similar to Roman aqueducts of old – McCullough was the engineer of record. Cape Creel Tunnel was built on the south side of the bridge, upping the cost and the difficulty of the project.
THREE MAJOR REALIGNMENTS IN THE SOUTH
Coos Bay-Coquille-Bandon
The original highway route went south from Coos Bay – then Marshfield – to the Coos County seat at Coquille. The highway then turned west to follow the Coquille River back to the sea at Bandon. In 1957, the new route headed straight south over hills to cross the Coquille River just before Bandon on one of the two steel vertical lifts found along the highway – 1952 Bullards Bridge. (The other being Young’s Bay Bridge in Astoria). Ten miles eliminated by the straighter road. Now, the old highway became parts of Oregon 35 – Coss Bay to Roseburg – and Oregon 244 – Coquille to Bandon.
The highway straightened further south from Bandon, as well in the mid-1950’s resulting in 25 miles of new highway between Port Orford and the Rogue River.
Humbug Mountain
One of those stretches took out a circuitous route which led south from Port Orford around the east side of Humbug Mountain. You can still see abandoned sections of the road above the campground of Humbug Mountain State Park. At this park, like many others along the coast, the CCC played a major role in development regrading the trail leading to the mountain top. From atop the mountain, the views far-reaching though trees have grown up to limit the magic.
Hiking south from Port Orford on the Oregon Coast Hiking Trail, you walk in above the campground on the old, abandoned highway. The trail drops down to the campground, but taking the Fern Trail brings you to the former highway bridge across Dry Run Creek. That trail used to continue to the Day-Use area of the park further south on the present highway, but lack of personnel for the southern coast parks seems to be a factor in the gradual disappearance of the path.
Gold Beach-Brookings
At the close of the 1950’s, ODOT created a final large realignment of the original route in Curry County. The old road headed up inland from Brookings to the south, winding through the hills to the hamlet of Carpenterville. The road was not one of Oregon’s finest efforts, but war intervened before ODOT could take efforts to straighten the route. Preceding ODOT’s efforts, Samuel Boardman, head of the Oregon States Parks Commission, successfully acquired some twelve miles of parkland along the coastline making up the 1,471 acres of today’s Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic corridor, through which ten of those miles, the highway cuts through.
Included in this section which reduced the highway mileage by 8.5 miles is Oregon’s highest bridge, the 340-foot-high Thomas Creek Bridge. All in all, the new road covered 34 miles – finished in 1961. At a cost of $18 million, it was the most expensive effort taken by ODOT to that date, too. You can still drive the old road. It is preserved as Oregon 255, the Carpenterville Highway.
A massive landslip north of Brookings recently – 2019 – on US 101 brought the old route back in as the main route while repairs recovered the main route. It is nice to have a back up.
OTHER HISTORY AND REALIGNMENTS ALONG THE OREGON COAST HIGHWAY
The best history of the Coast Highway and its effects on the economy and well-being of the coast and the State at large you will in a PDF found on the ODOT website.
There have been many other realignments of the Coast Highway. The road bypasses Cannon Beach today instead of driving right through the town; likewise, the highway used to run into Warrenton – today living as Oregon 202; Winchester Bay and the Umpqua Lighthouse used to be on the main road, but no more; realignments were needed when bridges replaced ferries; curves were straightened; road sections were widened. No doubt, other “improvements” lie in the future for the highway, for highways have a habit of living their own lives. Some of the improvements good, while other plans possibly shortsighted. Life for the Oregon Coast Highway remains unfinished.