The Columbia River Bar is not a local drinking establishment: it is where the enormous, swift-moving river, flowing like water from a fire hose, collides with the immense power of the Pacific Ocean. The two forces slam into each other at the entrance to the river creating the worst wave conditions on the planet. Since 1792, approximately 2,000 ships have sunk in and around the Columbia Bar giving it a reputation as the “Graveyard of Ships.”
In 1895 the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers began the process of taming the mouth of the Columbia River by constructing two long, rocky jetties to keep the mouth of the Columbia River from moving around. This huge public works project took more than three decades to complete. To build the jetties, tons of basalt rock was loaded on railroad cars. Following the trestle built over the water, the train would move the cars into place and the rocks dumped from both sides of the cars.
Prior to the construction of the jetties, the mouth of the Columbia River was over five miles wide and very shallow. The two jetties narrowed the mouth to two miles. The narrow mouth caused the river to flow faster which washed out some of the built-up sand and deepen the channel.
The North Jetty is a part of Washington’s Cape Disappointment State Park. Shown below are some photographs of the jetty and the area around it.