The Lost City of Bayocean: The ‘Atlantic City of the West’ that vanished into the sea.

So... if they had built the south jetty at the same time as the north one, Bayocean may still be around. That's the sad part of this story.

At the 20:07 mark. The man in the rolled down hip waders with his back to the camera is lawrence Root My grandfather , he lived on bayocean road just west of the memaloose point boat launch. My father went to bayocean school starting in 1934. I remember as a kid in the late 60's listening to the stories they would tell of bayocean.

Judging by the fact it began to rebuild after the south jetty was constructed its hard to believe the corps north jetty wasn’t responsible for destroying Bayocean

So basically when the Army Corps of Engineers determined that the North Jetty wasn't responsible for the erosion, they were either lying or extremely bad at their job. Now that the South Jetty has been built and the spit has been literally rebuilding itself (thus proving the North Jetty was the problem this entire time) I wonder if there might be a case to make regarding legal liability by the heirs of those who lost massive amounts of money. Naturally, they finally built the South Jetty after the Mitchells died. Hmm, coincidence? Maybe, but I find it hard to believe that experts wouldn't have realized their mistake and how to fix it until the 1970s. It's not like they didn't know how this stuff worked. Experts have understood this stuff for well over 100 years (which doesn't mean we haven't learned a lot since then, but they knew plenty to understand jetties and erosion).

Hubris. My dad's favorite word and he let each of his 4 daughters know what the meaning is and what it can mean to one's choices. N.B.: No one can tame the Pacific.

There have been so many places like this. It is extremely difficult to create lasting settlements on places like beaches, spits, and bays. Or at least shallow ones. The ocean will win.

My mom used to talk about the Natatorium at Bay Ocean. She was born in 1922 so 18 years old in 1940. I will have to ask her if she still has any photos from then.

Thank you OPB. This is a great documentary on the clashes between human perseverance and the power of nature. I am an Environmental and Water Resources Engineering graduate student at the University of Texas. I graduated from Portland State with a BSCE in 2019. The reporting by OPB and OFG reminds me of who and what makes the PNW special. Thank you for bringing a bit of history, engineering, and environment to a homesick student. Also, shout out to Steve Amen, Todd Sonflieth, Ed Jahn, and Jule Gilfillan!

There is a long tradition of politicians ruining economies and destroying dreams

The Jetty was also responsible for the loss of multiple oyster beds in Tillamook Bay and took out tidal pools south all the way to Newport

I absolutely hated the way the man talked about Mr. Mitchell "he was always a crazy old man". I honestly don't believe he was crazy. He had just lost everything he had worked so hard for and now his wife was dying and nobody would do a damn thing to help him. I think he just didn't care anymore what anyone thought and he was incredibly angry. I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have been just as angry. He was a stubborn, old man and nobody in this video ever said he was stupid. The erosion started immediately after the jetty was built and got worse when they extended it and he was in the town that had essentially killed his dreams and destroyed his home by being too cheap to build the second jetty even when their own fishermen were dying. The had him committed to shut him up and quit bothering them. He was a nuisance and a bother they didn't even have the decency to let him stay with his wife as she was dying. They shipped him off and good riddance, out of sight, out of mind.

This article reminds me of a similar historic event in San Francisco, CA: the destruction of Sutro Baths, an enormous glassed-in swimming emporium that was on the coast adjacent to Land's End park and was just north of Cliff House. The original Cliff House was also destroyed (twice) by lightning and storm. Its modern version is much smaller than the original, and is only a restaurant; whereas the original looked something like Xanadu from the movie Citizen Kane and was also a hotel, ballroom, etc.

Great documentary of a dream that never really materialized. People simply didn't understand the geology and hydrology of coastal areas back then. You just can't help but feel for Francis Mitchell; he literally had nothing other than the town left in his name. Even after Bayocean was mostly gone, he still had hope for the future of the town. He wasn't mentally insane, he was just in denial and heartbroken. After the great washout of 1952, only 6 people lived in Bayocean.

That's just heart wrenching! I'm not at all any kind of an engineer, but it made perfect sense that when they put that north jetty in, and how the currents of the Pacific come down from Portland way, the hydraulic whirlpooling effects south of the jetty would wash the shoreline away of Bayocean. Stand up on a bluff and watch it with your own eyes for petesake!! They drove that man insane. His heirs should be thoroughly compensated for the lost of all his investments and compensated for the pain and suffering they caused too. Had they built both those jetty's together, I'd lay down all I have that Bayocean would still be there today!! It's a bloody shame what they did!! I had to put in this edit, about the man who throughout the video, which is the same man at the very end, he tries to talk it all away, which tells me he was strictly narrated what to say. The old fella that use to live there, he'd of made it much more painfully clear of how the idiots that call themselves politicians and town counselors destroyed a dream what once was, and could still of been today, if they'd of just heard Mr. Mitchell's pleas to put in that south jetty!! Cities come and go I know, but to destroy a dream, that could of been shared by perhaps millions, is the saddest part of all! RIP Mr & Mr. Mitchell, you were an inspiration to be admired! But, as always, that's just my opinion! :(((

This happens periodically on Fire Island, the barrier beach between Long Island and the Atlantic in NY. As a young child, we’d sometimes take the old bridge across after a hurricane and look at the rich people’s houses on stilts, 12 feet in the air or roofs and eaves disappearing into the ocean. My mother remembered before the New England Hurricane of 1938 going crabbing in a little cove. That was totally destroyed and bay side beach cabins washed away when the ocean broke through forming the Shinnecock Canal. After about a decade, it slowly began filling in again, but had become an established boat route, so they built jetties and have regularly dredged to keep it open. If a storm hits when dredging is cut back, it’s positively treacherous to navigate. Every year, some foolish or naive people ignore the warning and no swimming signs and drown. Even when the seas are calm, a person can climb on the jetty and observe the shifting rip currents and whirlpools.

I grew up in a town on Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada. P.E.I. is basically a big sandbar in the Atlantic so a breakwater was constructed to shelter the harbor. After construction of the wharf the seaward side was lined with large cement blocks that were shaped like a pyramid to break the waves and each one was so large and heavy that they had to be set in place by a crane. After a particular hurricane passed through we found that these large cement blocks had been washed up from the water and were sitting on top of the wharf. Many had been washed completely to the other side of the wharf and had to be recovered from the water. Just goes to show that you can't mess with mother nature!

I am a born and raised Oregonian, who moved to the coast 32 years ago. How I knew absolutely NOTHING about this town is beyond me!! LOL!! I guess that I grew up with too many stories from my parents, about how both of their families survived the Vanport flood, the Tillamook burn, and how our family survived the Columbus Day storm in 1962, to which I was alive for, but much too young to remember it. Oregon has much GREAT history of both good and bad. The older that I get the more that I appreciate ALL of the wonderful history of our great state.

The construction of the Harbor in Santa Barbara California had the same effect on a coastal community some ways down the coast. the harbor spit, which take millions to dredge every year, started coastal erosion to the south and an entire beach side community disappeared into the ocean.

A very tragic but very interesting history, and a lesson for all time.

My husband is 58 and his grandparents built their retirement home in GAribaldi in 1972 and it sits just across the bay from here (in GAribaldi on Hwy 101). There's soo much rich history in this small area it's just amazing. Thanks for sharing.