Lost City of Bayocean
In the beginning, Bayocean was accessible only by water, first by way of a 150-foot yacht out of Portland, and later by ferry from Bay City across Tillamook Bay. Between 1907 and 1914, over 600 lots were sold to investors and residents.
The community of Bayocean grew to boast paved and lighted streets, a private railroad, general store, post office, public school, bakery, bowling alley, tennis court, golf links, trap shoot range, natural park, Methodist church, three-story luxury hotel, 1000-seat movie theater, and a 160-foot-long heated saltwater pool.
After the north jetty was constructed at the entrance of Tillamook Bay in 1917, erosion began to eat away at the ocean side of Bayocean peninsula, threatening the community’s survival. A four-mile road from Tillamook to Bayocean was completed in 1928, but by then the resort’s homes had begun falling into the sea.
In 1952, storm waves breached the peninsula, turning it into an island. The post office closed in 1953, and in 1960 the last remaining home was consumed by the ocean. A breakwater was constructed in 1956, followed by the south jetty in 1965, and the peninsula began to be restored, but too late for the town’s survival.
The last remaining structure, a garage, was lost to the water in 1971, leaving no further traces of the once-thriving resort community of Bayocean.
While you’re here…
Bayocean Peninsula
Bayocean Peninsula is four miles long and half a mile wide, and much of it is owned and operated by Tillamook County as a primitive park. Interpretive signs scattered throughout mark historic sites and introduce hikers to the lost city of Bayocean. Four miles of sandy, undeveloped beachfront stretch the length of the peninsula.
Bayocean Spit loop hike
This 7.5 mile hike extends from the trailhead parking lot to Kincheloe Point and back, traveling out by way of a gravel road alongside the bay, and returning on the sandy, undeveloped beach. Shorten the hike by cutting across the peninsula by way of the trails that lead through the shore pines and sand dunes and return by way of the beach.