One of the most identifiable geological formations in Oregon, Haystack Rock is a 235 foot sea stack situated at the Pacific Ocean shoreline and surrounding tide pools are accessible by foot only at low tide. Composed of basalt, this monolithic rock was formed by lava flows perhaps 15 to 17 million years ago. Three smaller and visually complimentary rock formations sit directly adjacent to the south and are collectively called “the Needles”.
In 1806, a scouting party led by William Clark of the infamous Lewis and Clark Expedition, traveled to the area in search of whale blubber and came upon what Clark described as “the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed, in front of a boundless ocean.”
In 1846, three cannon from the US Navy schooner Shark washed ashore on a nearby beach after the doomed ship crashed and split apart at the turbulent confluence of the Columbia River. Wreckage eventually made land just north of Arch Cape. The name Cannon Beach was adopted by city leaders in 1922, in part by insistence of the US Post Office. Up until then the place had been called Ecola (a Chinook Indian word meaning ‘whale’).
With 44 public access points and miles of wide, sandy publicly owned beaches, Cannon Beach is one of the Pacific Northwest’s most user-friendly stretches of coastline. Thanks to Oregon’s fourteenth governor, Oswald West, citizens and visitors alike enjoy a coastline protected from development or private ownership.