Peter Iredale was a British four-masted bark that ran aground in 1906 on Clatsop Spit, about 7 miles (11 km) west of Astoria and 2 miles (3 km) south-west of Hammond, Oregon. The 275-foot (84 m) vessel was named after Peter Iredale, British shipping magnate from Liverpool, England and co-owner of the Peter Iredale & John Porter Line. The vessel served in the Pacific Coast grain fleet, the so called wheat-fleet. This trade was fueled by hundreds of thousands of acres of wheat in eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho, becoming Oregon’s largest export in the early 20th century. Up to 10 million bushels of wheat annually were loaded onto dozens of ships at Portland and transported to Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. Navigating the Columbia River to Portland required sailing ships to cross dangerous sandbars between Cape Disappointment and Clatsop Spit, often in poor weather.
Clatsop Spit is a massive sand deposit extending north from Tillamook Head to the Columbia River. Its northern end was Point Adams, a navigational landmark first documented in 1775 by Spanish explorer Bruno de Hezeta. The point housed a prominent village called Klaát-sop, from which the Clatsop people took their name. This fishing place was enormously important; Klaát-sop referred to the salmon caught, processed and traded there. In 1852 President Millard Fillmore authorized construction of Fort Stevens on Point Adams to defend American interests in Oregon Territory. In 1855 the Army Corps of Engineers began building the South Jetty at Point Adams, extending it in 1913 and 1936 to its current length of 3,898 feet. In 1875 the Lighthouse Service built a light station on a sandy ridge 1 mile south of Point Adams. In 1886 Congress approved construction of the Point Adams Life-Saving Station near what became Hammond.
On October 25th 1906 Peter Iredale headed for the Columbia River to meet a pilot schooner that would guide her over the bar. Captain Henry Lawrence steered towards land after spotting Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, but the pilot schooner was under repair. Within an hour strong gale-force winds developed. Despite the crew’s efforts, the ship struck the sandy beach near the jetty. The impact was so great that three of the four masts snapped immediately. News reached Cape Disappointment and Point Adams life-saving stations shortly after the wreck. The Point Adams crew loaded their lifeboat onto a cart and pulled it across several miles of sand. By nine o’clock several surf boats were bringing shivering seamen ashore. The hull survived intact, but salvage operations had to wait weeks for favorable conditions; the ship became deeply embedded. Eventually sold for scrap, what remained rusts on the beach, an immediate tourist attraction repeatedly buried and uncovered by shifting sands. Read more here and here. Explore more of Peter Iredale and Clatsop Spit here: