Crescent Beach lies between Ecola Point and Chapman Point in Ecola State Park, about 20 miles (32 km) south-southwest of Astoria and 2 miles (3.2 km) north-northwest of Cannon Beach, Oregon. It is accessible via a 1.5‑mile (2.4‑km) trail from Ecola Point. The park covers 1,023 acres (414 ha) and includes Tillamook Head, which rises to 1,150 feet (351 m). Its 9‑mile (15‑km) shoreline stretches from Seaside in the north to Cannon Beach in the south. The rugged coastline rests on 15‑million‑year‑old Miocene volcanic rocks and sedimentary deposits formed in an ancient Columbia River mouth. The sedimentary strata—thin‑bedded, fine- to medium‑grained sandstones and silty shales grading upward into massive, fine‑grained, clay‑like siltstones—were intruded by basaltic dikes and sills before full consolidation. The resulting folds and small‑scale faults, particularly near the intrusions, have rendered these rocks unstable and prone to landslides. Evidence of massive landslides is evident in the beach cliffs. In February 1961, a large mass of earth slid seaward from Ecola Point, virtually destroying the parking and picnic areas and depositing material into the sea. The slide, which spanned over 0.5 miles (0.8 km) and covered about 125 acres (51 ha), moved like a slow glacier over two weeks, with a maximum vertical drop of roughly 40 feet (12 m). Landslides are common along this section of the Oregon coast. Aerial photography and ground inspections—from Chapman Point to Indian Point near Tillamook Head—reveal several major landslide areas. These likely result from wave erosion steepening unstable rocks at the toe of the sea cliffs. Stable volcanic rocks resist erosion, forming nearly vertical headlands such as Tillamook Head, Ecola Point, and Chapman Point, while less competent sedimentary rocks, weakened by winter water saturation, gradually slide seaward until equilibrium is reached.

Clatsop Chinook and Nehalem Tillamook peoples inhabited the region for thousands of years as part of a distinctive Northwest Coast culture. Before European contact, they sustained themselves mainly by fishing, hunting, gathering and trade. Rocky points and headlands offered superior access to deeper waters—ideal for fishing and hunting marine mammals compared to flat, sandy beaches. In 1806 the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery left Fort Clatsop near Astoria for Ecola Point. After hearing of a beached whale being butchered by a local tribe, Captain William Clark and 12 expedition members braved difficult terrain to trade for whale meat and blubber. They scaled Tillamook Head to bypass steep cliffs and descended to the southern beaches, where they found the remnants of a village later converted into a burial ground at present-day Indian Beach—a memorial to a community decimated by epidemics. During the journey, Clark named a nearby creek ‘Ecola’ (Chinook Jargon for ‘whale’) after the stranded whale near present-day Cannon Beach. By the 1850s Tillamook Head was under consideration for a lighthouse to aid navigation at the Columbia River’s southern mouth. By the early 1900s prominent Portland families—Glisan, Flanders, Minott and Lewis—had built grand residences at Ecola Point. In the early 1930s these families formed the Ecola Point and Indian Beach Corporation to transfer 451 acres between Indian Beach and Chapman Point to the nascent state park system, dismantling their homes. The park was dedicated in 1932, with Civilian Conservation Corps crews constructing trails, picnic areas and other amenities under State Parks Superintendent Samuel Boardman. Boardman later sought to acquire Tillamook Head’s former lighthouse site, but military radar installations during World War II delayed the plan. In 1951 the state secured 100 acres on Tillamook Head, and subsequent purchases expanded the park to its current size by 1978. Landslides continue to threaten infrastructure and erode at least two prehistoric sites at Ecola Point.

Ecola Point is an archaeological site linked to the ancient Tillamook people. Although rock art is rare along the Oregon coast, petroglyphs—motifs pecked or incised onto bedrock—have reportedly been found in Ecola State Park. The Ecola Point site—a village shell midden first recorded in 1976—includes several possible house pit. A 1983 landslide damaged the area, destroying up to 10% of the deposits and exposing a pit oven containing a sea lion skeleton. At Bald Point, a shell midden of mussels, barnacles, fire‑cracked rock and charcoal was partly lost to landslides and completely destroyed by wave erosion five years later. In 1995 archaeologists discovered another midden on higher ground. Nearby, a shallow, rectangular depression partly hidden by brush may have been a house pit. This upper‑terrace midden is dominated by mussels, shell fragments, barnacle plates, dogwinkle, burned rock and charcoal. Excavations have yielded 423 artifacts of stone, bone, shell and metal, along with remains of shellfish, fish, sea and land mammals, and birds dated from 1040 to 1660 AD. Numerous metal fragments suggest the site was occupied into the early post‑European era. The findings may illuminate environmental changes along the Oregon coast and coastal tribes’ settlement and subsistence patterns. The modern Oregon coast features diverse environments shaped by local variations in geology, hydrology, biology and coastal processes. Archaeological sites here offer extensive data on Native American use of coastal landscapes over the past three millennia—and on earlier occupation when sea levels differed from today. Although coastal Oregon has long experienced dynamic change, postglacial sea‑level rise remains a dominant factor. While most archaeologists believed sea levels stabilized 3000 to 5000 years ago, local studies indicate that changes have persisted—and may be accelerating. Read more here and here. Explore more of Crescent Beach and Ecola Point here: