Oregon
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Coquille River Lighthouse, Bandon,
Oregon
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Bullard's Beach State Park coast
surf
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The north jetty at the Coquille
River
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Need any firewood?
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Crab pots
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We know the difference between
female and male crabs now
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Cape Arago Lighthouse
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Sunset Bay State Park coastline
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They don't do much swimming in
this area of the coast.
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Face Rock (Note)
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Cranberry Bog (Note)
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Gorse (Note)
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Yert |
Our trip to southern Oregon took us to Brandon, OR, the home of Bullard's Beach State Park. Joy and Carl work here at this park almost every summer and their favorite job is to run the tours of the Coquille River Lighthouse. This lighthouse was first built in 1896 to protect the entrance into the mouth of the Coquille River. The original location of the lighthouse was out on a huge rock and it was not until 1905 when the land around the lighthouse was filled in to make a north jetty. Until that time, the lighthouse keeper had to walk a wooden pathway from the house to the lighthouse to do his work. The lighthouse contained a 4th order Fresnel lense and was lighted by a oak burning wick. On a clear night, the light could be seen 12 miles offshore. The fuel for the wick was originally whale oil, but in later years it was changed to a cleaner mineral oil. For the sailors to identify what lighthouse they were seeing, each lighthouse has a distinctive pattern of time "on" and time "off" for the light; Coquille was on for 28 seconds and off for 2 seconds. This was accomplished by having brass shutters that blocked off the wick for 2 seconds and the opening up again. Even today, there is still no electrical power to the lighthouse, the small gift shop in the base uses a battery powered cash register. In 1939, with the advent of other navigational aids, the lighthouse was taken out of service by the Coast Guard and the flame was extinguished. In 1964 when Bullard's Beach State Park was established, the state took ownership of the lighthouse and in 1979, the lighthouse was reopened for visitors. Just for nostalgia, the lighthouse now does have a solar powered light that runs at night so the people of Brandon, OR can look across the river and see their lighthouse at night. If finding driftwood is one of your hobbies, this northern coastline is a prime site. With the many rivers running into the sea and bringing wood down from the lumbering areas, the beaches are full of every size imaginable. When we first got to the state park, the parking lot for the lighthouse had to be cleared of thousands of logs that had washed up during the winter storms.
Our trip to Shore Acres Gardens in Sunset Beach State Park was a beautiful setting. The park itself is 320 acres that are heavily forested on the eastern side and then the western edge drops right into the Pacific Ocean. The gardens were started back in the late 1800's by a Mr. Simpson. His family had moved to Oregon after being part of the California gold rush and came north looking for more gold. Instead of gold, they found their fortunes in lumber. After establishing the Simpson Lumber Co., Mr. Simpson needed better ships to move the lumber back down the coast to California where housing was booming. One day, the son of Mr. Simpson was viewing the coastline as they approached in a ship and he spied an area on the coastline that he wanted to explore more from the land. After he found the area he was interested in, he ran into a man sitting on his little house by the ocean. Mr. Simpson asked him how much he wanted for his land and the man said $4,000; Mr. Simpson said, "I'll take it." The 320 acres became their new home and he built a huge house right on the ocean side. One on the things that he loved was flowers and he made a garden part of the landscaping. Living on a major port and being ship builders, the son of Mr. Simpson had access to ship captains that roamed the world. He was fascinated with flowers and made request of the ship captains to bring back flowers from foreign ports. The garden is full of flowers from around the world. Later the family donated the land to the state for the park and in 1972 the garden was renovated to its current style. Today, the garden is a huge rectangle with plants from around the world filling the beds along the edge. The center of the garden is lush green grass with four square tulip beds. On one end of the garden is an oriental garden section complete with a pond. At Christmas time, the old home is open for visitors and the garden is illuminated with several hundred thousand lights.
Legend of Face Rock
Many years ago an Indian girl was coming to a huge powwow with her Dad and they
traveled to the big Pacific Ocean. The site for the powwow was right where Bandon,
OR is now located. The young girl loved to dance on the beach and was warned
many times to stay away from the water because of the evil spirit "Seatka"
that lived deep in the ocean. One day the girl forgot what her parents had been
telling here and she began to swim out into the waves. The next thing she knew
the ocean was foaming up and "Seatka" was coming to get her. Her faithful
dog tried to save here from "Seatka", but he was lost in the ocean
waves. The young girl was taken by "Seatka" and even today, you can
look into the ocean and see her floating in the waves. There is another rock
down the beach that looks like her dog.(Face)
Cranberries are a major crop of the area and have been since the turn of the century. Originally the cranberries were grown on the ground and then harvested with what looked like huge combs; they just "combed" the berries out of the vines. Later someone developed the method of "wet harvesting". Now when the berries are ripe, the bog is flooded to a depth of about 2 feet. With a machine that looks sort of like an ATV with a big wheel up front they drive through the bog. The wheel that is turning in the water is knocking the berries off the vines and the berries float to the surface. After the berries float to the surface they use long boards tied together to corral the berries to the side of the bog where they are moved with long conveyor belts up into the trucks. They are then processed for the many products that we buy at the store. Did you know that there are only three native berries to the US, the concord grape, the blueberry and the cranberry.
When Bandon was first established, it was named Arverville after the family that first built here. Just three years later the population had changed and the city council was run by a family named the Bennets. Mr. Bennet came from Bandon, Ireland and he and his other family members on the council voted to change the name of the city to Bandon. The other thing that he did that left an imprint on the area forever is importing a plant from Ireland. Back in his home of Ireland there was a beautiful shrub called Irish Fir; also called "gorse". It made a great hedgerow that is covered with yellow flowers. So, Mr. Bennet had some shipped over from Ireland to plant in his new home of Bandon, OR. What he did not realize was that the plant in Ireland was always grown only in hedge areas and was contained there. When the gorse was planted over here, there was so much open, undeveloped area for the plant to spread into that it spread everywhere. Now there is gorse in every field, along every highway. The main problem is that it is almost impossible to eradicate, it is tough, has large stickers everywhere, making it hard to cut down. The other problem with it is that it has very oily wood and burns very fast. It is blamed for the forest fire that came down from the hills in 1936 and burned down almost every house and building in Bandon. The city council, back in the 1950's passed an ordinance that every landowner had to take out all the gorse from their land or be fined. That ordinance was quickly rescinded when it was determined that most of the gorse in town was on city property and the city did not have enough money to pay for it to be removed. Now gorse is just a pretty, pesky plant that is everywhere.