Tag: Oregon

Oregon’s Heceta Head Lighthouse and its stories

Leo S

For more than a century Heceta Head Lighthouse has helped seagoers navigate the Pacific Ocean’s treacherous currents. Located 13 miles (21 km) north of Florence, and 13 miles (21 km) south of Yachats, it was built in 1894, and took many years to complete because it’s so high up (almost 62 meters above water). The 17 m-tall lighthouse shines a beam visible for 21 nautical miles (39 km; 24 mi), making it the strongest light on the Oregon Coast. Heceta Head is named after the Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta,…

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Terrible Tilly, the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse

Leo S

When you see the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, you probably think, “Oh, what a beautiful lighthouse!” But – there is more, much more, to its story. Devastating storms, harsh existence, isolation, madness, death, and even hauntings – all add up to the myths, mystery, and intrigue surrounding the lighthouse not by chance nicknamed “Terrible Tilly”. But let’s start at the beginning. One mile west of Tillamook Head, a rock Shaped like a sea monster rises from the ocean. It is where old Nor’easters go to die, and where Indians believed under…

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Crater Lake: the deepest lake in the United States, and once the site of epic destruction that lives on in myth.

Leo S

Crater Lake, Oregon, has been known different names. It was first known, to non-Native Americans anyway, as “Deep Blue Lake,” as named in 1853 by its discoverer, John Wesley Hillman, an American prospector. Later, in 1885, it was dubbed Lake Majesty, and finally Crater Lake. Today Crater Lake and the Crater National Park that surrounds it are popular destinations for hikers and campers, but it was once the site of enormous geological upheaval, and one of the largest volcanic eruptions ever witnessed by humans, so terrifying that it has been…

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Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, the mysterious disappearance of Muriel Trevenard and its haunted history

Nathan

On a scenic basalt rock headland that juts into the Pacific Ocean stands a beautiful white lighthouse. At 28 meter tall, the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, located in Newport, Oregon, is the state’s tallest lighthouse and It’s been guiding ships for 145 years. For over a century, ghost stories have swirled around the lighthouse, locally know as Oregon’s most famous haunted lighthouse. It was built in 1871, and first lit on August 20, 1873. One tale tells of a construction worker helping to build the tower who fell to his death.…

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“Old Man of the Lake”: the tree log that has been floating vertically for 120 years and no one knows why.

Leo S

“Old Man of the Lake” is not a legend or a myth, but a real 450-year-old hemlock that’s been floating vertically in the Oregon’s Crater Lake for at least 120 years. The floating tree stump has been bobbing in the blue water of the deepest lake in the United States, and the ninth deepest in the world, baffling everybody, including scientists, with its upright orientation and allegedly even controlling the local weather. Its first account dates back to 1896, when geologist and explorer Joseph S. Diller described a splintered and…

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Portland Troll Bridge – Oregon

Leo S

There is a popular story, “Three Billy Goats Gruff”, in which three little goats are trying to get across a bridge, but a troll who lives underneath it threatens to eat them up. They trick him to cross, and all ends well (for the goats, at least). Now that you’re all grown up, you know that trolls don’t really live under bridges. But there’s one bridge in Oregon where trolls actually do live…and it’s really pretty charming! The reason (or the reasons) why trolls began to appear under a bridge…

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The spectacular Neskowin Ghost Forest in Oregon

Pavel

In the small coastal town of Neskowin in Tillamook County in Oregon, somewhere between Lincoln City and Pacific City lie the remains of an ancient forest, rising out of the sand and seawater. Dubbed the Neskowin Ghost Forest, they are an eerily beautiful memory of the towering Sitka spruce trees that stood here for some two millennia. For nearly 300 years the “phantom forest” strains remained hidden under the sand, resting until they were uncovered during the winter of 1997-1998, when the coast of Oregon was pummeled by powerful storms…

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Portland, Oregon: The Witch’s Castle~

Leo S

These old stone ruins, lost in the Oregon nature, were once bathrooms and are steeped in legends of murder. From stories of murder to the site of high school keggers, the ruins that are now known as “The Witch’s Castle” have lived a fair amount of lives, and none of them were very happy….. In the mid-1800s, well before the structure was built, a man named Danford Balch bought a great portion of land around the area, in a time when Portland was still in the process of being developed.…

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