Cape Falcon is a headland between Short Sand Beach in Smugglers Cove to the south and Cove Beach to the north, about 23 miles (37 km) north-northwest of Tillamook and 9 miles (14.5 km) south of Cannon Beach, Oregon. It is part of Oswald West State Park and adjacent to Cape Falcon Marine Reserve. The cape was named in 1775 by Bruno de Heceta, a Spanish explorer, after Santa Clara de Montefalco, though it went by other names until 1887, when George Davidson, chief cartographer for the US Coast Survey, published the name Cape Falcon on official charts. Cape Falcon has a summit elevation of about 1,010 feet (308 m) and, with neighboring Neahkahnie Mountain with an elevation of 1,680 feet (512 m), form one of the prominent headlands of the Coast Range. The rocks of the Coast Range formed in the ocean during the Eocene, Oligocene, and Miocene epochs, about 56 million to 5 million years ago. Early in the Miocene, the Coast Range was uplifted and the older rocks were folded and faulted. Sediments eroded from the uplifted land were deposited in bays along with shells of mollusks and other marine animals. These beds became the Astoria Formation, named after the town where it was first described. While the Astoria Formation was being deposited, basalt was extruded onto the sea floor from submarine volcanic vents, at approximately the same time as the Columbia River basalt outpourings in the Columbia River Gorge region. The rock formations were subsequently uplifted and exposed to wave erosion, resulting in a narrow coastal plain of marine terraces interrupted by basalt headlands such as Cape Falcon, which is more resistant to erosion than the surrounding sedimentary rocks of the Astoria Formation.

Cape Falcon lies within the traditional territory of the Tillamook people, which extended from Tillamook Head in the north to Cape Foulweather in the south and inland to the crest of the Coast Range. The Tillamook are the southernmost branch of the Coast Salish and are separated from the northern Coast Salish by the Clatsop and other tribes that speak Chinookan languages. The name Tillamook is of Chinook origin and means “the people of Nehalem.” The first documented encounter with Euro-Americans was in 1788, when Captain Robert Gray on the Lady Washington entered Tillamook Bay and went ashore for supplies. Fighting erupted with the local Tillamook, and Marcus Lopez, Gray’s cabin boy and cook from West Africa’s Cape Verde Islands, was killed. The second encounter was in late 1805, when a group from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, wintering at Fort Clatsop, ventured south to where a whale had washed ashore near present-day Ecola Head and traded with the Tillamook for blubber that could be rendered for oil. In 1824 and 1829 the tribe suffered high mortality from smallpox introduced by Europeans. The arrival of Oregon Trail settlers in 1841 and resulting conflicts over land and resources caused further population losses. In 1856 the federal government forced the Tillamook and more than 20 other coastal tribes to the Siletz Reservation. In 1911 Oregon Governor Oswald West sought to preserve the state’s beaches for public use and declared them public highways. In 1929 Samuel Boardman became Oregon’s first director of state parks and received a proposal from Helen Drollinger, who together with Sam Reed would contribute land. During the next ten years Boardman acquired 2,474 acres (1,001 ha) along 5 miles (8 km) of coastline from the north slope of Arch Cape to the south slope of Neahkahnie Mountain. The park was originally named Short Sand Beach State Park; in 1956 the name was changed to honor Oswald West.

Marine protected areas are places in the sea designed to protect marine species and ecosystems while sometimes allowing sustainable uses of marine resources within their boundaries. The main goal is to preserve or restore the abundance and diversity of marine life. Scientific monitoring of marine protected areas can guide management to balance the level of protection required with the needs of local communities. Marine protected areas can provide either partial protection, where some uses are prohibited but some extractive activities are allowed and regulated, or full protection, where all extractive and destructive activities are forbidden except as needed for scientific monitoring. Fully protected areas are also called no-take areas. Cape Falcon Marine Reserve was designated in 2016 and is the second-largest of five marine reserves on the Oregon coast, with 7,936 acres (3,212 ha) in the marine reserve offering the highest degree of protection. The marine reserve prohibits ocean development and the removal of any marine life from just north of Manzanita to the north end of Cape Falcon at Falcon Cove. Safe passage and anchoring of boats are allowed as long as fishing gear is not deployed. Another 4,864 acres (1,968 ha) were designated as marine protected areas with more limited protection. In the Cape Falcon Shoreside Marine Protected Area only fishing from the beach is allowed. In the West Marine Protected Area only salmon fishing by troll and crabbing are allowed. Read more here and here. Explore more of Cape Falcon and Oswald West State Park here: