2C
THE DAILY ASTORIAN FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2016
HISTORIC
PHOTOS OF THE WEEK
Photos courtesy of Cannon Beach History Center and Museum
The Arch Cape Tunnel.
The Arch
Cape Tunnel
By ELAINE TRUCKE
Special to The Daily Astorian
S
ince its beginning, Arch Cape has
been isolated.
The natural barriers of the
Tillamook h eadland, Hug Point, the
Arch Cape headland and Neahkahnie
Mountain made it almost impossible to
build a road following the coast.
Early settlers would use the beach
as a highway, and in the 1910 s the
roadbed around Hug Point was blasted
out, which made the commute between
Cannon Beach and Arch Cape easier.
At that time, there was still no road
to travel to and from Arch Cape, and it
wasn’t until 1916 that a surfaced road
led into Seaside from Astoria. I n 1919,
legislation passed for the construc-
tion of a coast highway from Astoria
to California. The highway known as
U.S. Highway 101 was completed in
1936 shortly before tunnel construc-
tion began.
In a 1978 oral history conversation
with Ed Carlson, he mentioned the
dif¿ culty of getting to and from Arch
Cape and Cannon Beach, saying that,
“before the tunnel was built, when our
kids were small, we used to go around
to (Highway) 26 and, I think, (High-
way) 30, and go around Mohler to
Wheeler and drive way up on Neah-
kahnie Mountain, and that was as far
as you could go. We had to drive 40
miles to get up there and (we) were
only 15 miles from Cannon Beach!”
In 1936, a contract by the Oregon
h ighway d epartment had authorized
construction of .62 miles of highway
roadbed that included 1,227.1 feet of
tunnel, 26 feet wide and 23 feet high
at Arch Cape.
Part of the contract included con-
struction of a pile trestle bridge with a
concrete deck that would be 166 feet
in length. A tunnel was then blasted
through the ridge of Arch Cape and
high steel bridges were erected to span
Arch Cape Creek, Short Sand Creek,
and Necarney Creek.
The h ighway d epartment set the
completion date for Dec. 31 , 1936, but
because of heavy rains, mud, inexpe-
rienced supervision, improper equip-
ment, and delay in getting the timber
that was used for the lining delivered
to the job site, they had extended the
completion date to February 1938.
However, it wasn’t until March 1940
that all of the work was completed,
which included replacing some of the
treated timber and installing the curbs,
gutters, concrete sills, and pavement.
Elaine Trucke is the executive
director of the Cannon Beach History
Center and Museum.
Keep it down
?
S
ometimes you just need a little sleep.
Like the woman in Warrenton who called emergency dispatch for help
because her boyfriend would not let her go to sleep.
Or the person disturbed by a party in a Seaside hotel room.
You need sleep. How else will you have the energy to dance drunk in the
middle of the street in Astoria on a Sunday afternoon?.
9-1-WHAT?
THE BEST OF THE WORST CALLS TO ASTORIA 911 DISPATCH
Follow reporter Kyle Spurr on his 9-1-What? Twitter watch, where a few of
the sometimes head-scratching calls to area dispatch take center stage. The full
feed is at www.twitter.com/9_1_WHAT.
W hile other n ew spa pers give you less, The D a ily Astoria n
GIVES
YOU
From left: H illa ry Borru d ,
M a teu sz Perk ow sk i,
Pa ris Achen
O u r n ew
M ORE
C APITAL
B UREAU
covers the sta te for you