Bayocean was a planned coastal resort town on the Tillamook Bay sand spit in Oregon, famously known as the “Atlantic City of the West.” It completely vanished into the Pacific Ocean due to man-made erosion.
19-year-old Thomas Irving Potter was vacationing at Tillamook Bay. The story goes that he shot a goose while target practicing with a revolver that he’d just acquired. When the goose dropped into the highest dune of the spit, he hiked up to retrieve it and fell in love with the place. The spit was long and narrow. At some points there was perhaps only a football field of width between the Pacific Ocean and Tillamook Bay. At other spots it was 150 feet high. The Potters named their development “Bayocean Park” and starting drawing up big plans. There was to be a grand hotel, a swimming pool and a boardwalk. The idea was that as people bought lots, the Potters would build new amenities and the town would grow.
They sold lots, built a dock and four miles of infill for a new street, Bayside Boulevard. They also built employee housing , an administration building, an amusement arcade, an indoor pool, a store and a bowling alley. The big problem is there wasn’t a good road from Portland to the area back then. No problem, they got a giant yacht to sail people in. But, nevertheless, the seas were choppy and it wasn’t, “smooth sailing”. They pushed on and the next, “fix”, was building a jetty to tame the seas.
I’ll skip ahead…the town ended up failing and eroding into the sea basically. There isn’t much left but we rode out and back on the spit to take in the sights. The road is gravel and dirt and closed to cars. With the ocean on one side and the bay on the other, the weather can be interesting. It was chilly and overcast at the start the day we rode but then the sun came out and warmed everything up.
