Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon

Know Nostalgia

Hear the tale of a doomed 1900s resort near Tillamook.

In 1906, big dreams and the quest for a West Coast resort led to the creation and eventual doom of a community built on the four-mile-long spit that protects Tillamook Bay from the Pacific Ocean. Hear from author Jerry Sutherland on his latest book Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon which chronicles the half-century the Oregon resort town existed, tells the stories of the people involved, and explains its financial and physical demise.

Bayocean boasted a hotel, natatorium (a heated saltwater pool with a wave machine), Bayocean Boulevard, arcade, pier, bowling alley, summer cottages, and more. Erosion began pulling homes into the sea in the late 1920s and undercut the Bayocean Natatorium in 1932. More homes fells as the spit's foredune continued to recede. In November 1952 a storm surge blew 3,000 feet at its base into Tillamook Bay. Slowly the community and the dreams that built Bayocean crumbled, and by 1971 the last remnants disappeared.

After hiking the area and discovering what lay hidden beneath his feet, Jerry Sutherland meticulously researched and documented Bayocean. Eight years of research has made him an expert on this vanished city. His book, Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon is more than a history, it is the biography of a time and place, as well as the people who built it and Oregon.

His book will be available for purchase and signing after the presentation.

Jerry Sutherland began researching Oregon history in 2012 after his father (Art) asked him to look up something about Calvin Tibbets at the Oregon Historical Society. The thrill he experienced in discovering new information about historical events and people led to future visits, trips to archives across the United States and Canada, and the publishing of Calvin Tibbets: Oregon's First Pioneer in August 2016.

In the fall of 2014, Sutherland learned that Bayocean - the sandspit that separates Tillamook Bay from the Pacific Ocean - had once hosted a thriving resort. His surprise at having never seen any evidence of its existence while hiking there prompted him to learn more. He created https://www.bayocean.net/ to share some of what he was discovering with the public. When Grant McOmie took notice in the summer of 2015, he asked for help with a Grant's Getaway program about Bayocean. Four years later, Jule Gilfillan consulted him regarding an "Oregon Field Guide" special. Increasing interest from book publishers prompted Sutherland to start writing Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon in 2019.  It was published in February 2023.

Questions? Contact laurelw@deschuteslibrary.org