Grays Harbor's Deadly Bar — and the Lighthouse It Still Lacks

A board of engineers of the United States army has declared that it cannot recommend "as indispensable" a lighthouse at Gray's Harbor, Oregon. It believes, however, "it is desirable." In the first place the board does not appear to be posted enough to know where Gray's Harbor is located, and in the second place it evidently has never read much about Gray's Harbor. Thirdly, it would be highly desirable for the board to visit the Harbor and ascertain the history of the wrecks strewn along the upper Washington coast, for want of a proper lighthouse at the Harbor entrance.

One of the largest rivers — the Chehalis — wholly within this state, pours its waters into the harbor in question. It is navigable for large vessels for more than twenty-five miles. Captain Bolton W. DeCourcey, the well-known chief engineer and surveyor of Gray's Harbor for the harbor line commission, says, "The more I look at this harbor, the more I am impressed that it affords the most interesting problem on the Pacific coast, in Washington." He then shows that vessels drawing as much as seventeen feet have been passing out, timber laden, for many years. Three miles out in the ocean, past its mouth, is a bar of sand and breakers, and there is evidence that twenty-two feet depth at low water has been found on it. There are thriving cities and towns on the Harbor, one of them the Pacific coast terminus of the Northern Pacific. Old sea captains who have been sailing in and out of the harbor for twenty years say they have never found under nineteen feet on the bar, and they have come in at all stages of the tide.

Think of a harbor of such commercial importance without a lighthouse at either the north or south point of entrance. We hear that a new lighthouse will shortly be completed on Destruction Island. This is nearer to Cape Flattery than Gray's Harbor and stands out five miles from the rocky and dangerous headlands of the coast. All sea captains admit that a lighthouse ought to be erected at one of the entrances to this fine harbor, which is growing in commercial importance every day.

The wrecked ship Abercorn lies but a few miles above the northern entrance of this harbor, and the Ferndale was wrecked near the same place but a few weeks ago and all hands lost but three. Washington does not appear to be getting much out of the appropriations this year. Oregon, however, is doing well.