Arch Cape is a small community at the mouth of Arch Cape Creek named after a natural sea arch in a basalt headland, about 25 miles (40 km) north-northwest of Tillamook and 6.5 miles (10 km) south of Cannon Beach, Oregon. The creek flows west for about 4 miles (6 km), draining a Coast Range watershed between Onion Peak (3,057 feet/932 m) in the north to Angora Peak (2,682 feet/817 m) in the south. The region is mostly underlain by Astoria Formation sandstone and Depoe Bay basalt. During the Miocene—approximately 35 to 13 million years ago—a shallow marine embayment brought vast quantities of sand, mud, and gravel, transported by an ancestral Columbia River from the early Cascade Mountains. These sediments formed a large delta that later lithified and was intruded by magma. In the Pliocene (13 to 3 million years ago), uplift, faulting, folding, and erosion gave rise to today’s Coast Range. In this area, the Astoria Formation reaches up to 1,100 feet (335 m) of sandstone, while Depoe Bay basalt forms the erosion-resistant headlands, measuring more than 2,000 feet (610 m) at Onion Peak. During the Pleistocene—from roughly 2.6 million to 11,000 years ago—erosion carved valleys in the softer sandstone, leaving harder basalt dikes as narrow ridges and basalt sills as rugged peaks. Marine terraces of dune and beach sands, gravel, silt, and sand formed as sea levels fluctuated, leaving wave-cut benches 40 to 100 feet (12–30 m) above the present level along the Oregon coast. Today, Arch Cape sits on a marine terrace planed flat by wave erosion. Since the Pleistocene, continuous wave action has carved a new underwater bench and eroded softer rock to form stacks, caves, notches, cliffs, and narrow beaches while leaving more resistant headlands like Arch Cape largely intact.

Marine terraces along the Oregon coast have been home to Native Americans for thousands of years, most recently the Clatsop, a Chinook‐speaking tribe. Historically, the Clatsop were hunters and gatherers living in small villages along salmon‐spawning streams. They built family lodges of cedar planks, crafted canoes from cedar logs—hollowed with fire then shaped and finished with stone or bone tools—and fashioned food bowls and utility vessels from stone, wood, bone, and shell. They also wove mats and baskets from hide, vine, grass, and bark and practiced head flattening by binding infants’ foreheads with a rigid strip of bark or wood fastened to the cradleboard. The first documented Euro-American contact came in 1792 when Captain Robert Gray mentioned the tribe in his journal. In 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Clatsop, who shared salmon, berries, and hunting tips with the Corps of Discovery. An 1851 treaty proposed that the Clatsop cede 90 percent of their land to the US government, but the Senate never ratified it. Although not forced onto reservations, the Clatsop today lack federal recognition and struggle to preserve their communal identity. In 1891, a post office opened in Arch Cape—a remote hamlet reached by a wagon road with mail delivered weekly on foot or horseback. Before the Oregon Coast Highway existed, access was limited to northern approaches and low-tide beach crossings. In 1936, the highway terminated just south of Arch Cape Creek, and work began on a tunnel through Neahkahnie Mountain. Completed in 1940, the tunnel is now 1,228 feet (375 m) long.

Ocean waves generated by energetic winter storms remove sand from beaches, while lower-energy summer waves deposit it. At Arch Cape this seasonal process sometimes exposes giant tree stumps estimated to be at least 4,000 years old—remnants of prehistoric cedar and possibly redwood trees. In 2008, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department staff removed a pair of historical cannons from the schooner USS Shark. Built in Washington, D.C, and launched in 1821, the 86‑foot vessel displaced 198 tons and carried 12 guns—ten 18‑pound carronades and two 9-pounder guns. USS Shark first sailed off Africa, the West Indies, and New England before joining the Pacific Squadron in 1833 to safeguard American interests. In 1846, under Lieutenant Neil M. Howison,, the vessel crossed the bar at the mouth of the Columbia River for expeditions on the lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers while staging from Fort Vancouver. After several weeks, she returned to the river’s mouth but struck an uncharted shoal despite fresh observations of the bar, and was swept into the breakers. The vessel was a total loss, though her entire crew was saved. Hudson’s Bay Company officers at Fort Vancouver promptly organized a relief effort—dispatching food, tobacco, and clothing—for the rescued crew. Howison later learned that a group of Clatsop had found part of the hull washed ashore 20 to 30 miles (32 to 48 km) south of the accident. Midshipman Simes, sent to investigate, discovered wreckage near the mouth of Shark Creek at Arch Cape. He reported that three of the ten carronades were recovered, but transporting the heavy guns over the rough mountain trail proved impractical, so they were abandoned. In 1898, mail carrier Bill Luce found one cannon on the beach, which a team of horses dragged from the sand. It now is on display in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Two additional cannons recovered from Arch Cape beach in 2008 are exhibited at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon. Read more here and here. Explore more of Arch Cape Creek and Arch Cape here: