About Oregon Fishing.

Tillamook Bay

The name "Tillamook" is Coast Salish word meaning "Land of Many Waters", probably referring to the rivers that enter the bay. At the time of the arrival of Europeans, the area along the coast was inhabited by the Tillamook and other related Coast Salish tribes. Historians believe they entered the area around the year 1400 and Lewis and Clark estimated the population south of the Columbia River along the coast at approximately 2,200.

The first American at Tillamook Bay was Captain Robert Gray who in August, 1788 arrived and explored the surrounding area. He was the first known American to set foot on Oregon shore. Gray at first thought he had landed at the Columbia river but after discovering his mistake and a hostile encounter with the local natives, where one of Grays crew along with several natives were killed, he left the area after one weeks stay.

The bay was settled in 1848 by Elbridge Trask, who overland journey to the bay and subsequent trials of early settlement were described in the 1960 historical novel Trask by Don Berry. The novel, along with two sequels, are collectively known as the "Trask novels."

In 1911 an Oregon Municipal corporation called the Port of Ocean Bay was formed by a special election to manage land at the entrance to the bay. During World War II, the United States Navy operated blimp patrol station in the bay at Naval Air Station Tillamook. The station was decommissioned in 1948. In 1953 the Port of Ocean Bay acquired the former station and began operating it as the Port of Tillamook Bay. A 5.5 mi (9 km) railroad spur, originally built by the Navy, connects the coastal communities along the bay to the Southern Pacific Railroad at Tillamook. The bay is within easy driving distance of Portland and is one of the most popular gateways the Oregon Coast. The town of Tillamook is the location of the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory.

Tillamook Bay the words conjure visions of big sleds boating huge kings in this scenic, shallow bay. Two things set Tillamook Bay apart from other bays: The fact that it is the largest estuary on the coast, and the productivity of its tributaries: the Miami, Kilchis, Wilson, Trask and Tillamook. With fall Chinook runs often in excess of 30,000 spawners, Tillamook Bay is truly one of the best opportunities on the coast to boat a fifty-pounder. T-Bay can be effectively fished by a variety of methods. The surest way to learn, however, is to go with Shawn from All American Fishing.

Shawn's techniques include trolling cut-plug herring and spinners, but despite the changing terminal tackle the basic rig stays the same. A slider on the main line to which a 15 inch sinker drop is attatched and a 8-foot, forty pound leader with a bead chain in the middle. Shawn's sinker selection runs from 12oz balls used out at the jaws of the bay to 2oz mini-balls in the shallow channels at the head of the bay.

The secret of Shawn's success is fresh herring on the line all the time, and a hand cut herring which produces a spiraling twirl. Shawn's theory with this lies in simple mathmatics; the herring is two things, first its bait giving off fresh scent and second it is a flasher. The more rotations per foot the herring spins, the more it flashes, thus proving better results. Try hand cutting your herring, reduce the meiter angle, and the herring rolls faster in a smaller circle.

Garibaldi
The City of Garibaldi was named for Guiseppe Garibaldi who was the liberator and unifier of Italy. He is looked upon as the father of his country in Italy just as George Washington is ours. In the 1860's he was a world hero who was admired for his statesmanship, generalship, and selflessness. Italy was then a collection of dukedoms, principalities, and papal states, with no standing among the nations of the World. Garibaldi with a legendary force of a thousand Red Shirts unified the nation though a series of battles and diplomatic treaties. King Victor Emanuel of Sardinia was placed on the throne while Garibaldi went off to South America to fight other wars of liberation. Our founder Daniel A. Bailey was a great admirer of Garibaldi and, as postmaster, had the first postal stamp engraved, “Garibaldi, Oregon, 1870. Besides running the post office, Bailey built a hotel at the start of the Beach Trail so travelers could rest before setting off to Nehalem, Clatsop Plains and Astoria. He also owned the grocery and dry goods store, a barbershop and a saloon.

In those days Garibaldi was divided by deep ravines from a dozen creeks which filled with water every high tide. Bayley bought most of the level land in town for a dollar an acre and sub-divided it into lots, hoping to sell them for a tidy profit. Most didn’t sell until long after his death however when the sawmills brought more residents. Bayley Park Addition now comprises a a large portion of the developed part of town.

Located at the corner of Third and Cypress is Reverend Creech’s Church. Before he or any settlers came to Garibaldi it was known as ”Kil-har-hurst” or “the place of the shamans”. It’s interesting to note that whenever native-American travelers passed Kil-har-hurst they averted their eyes so as not to offend the spirits.

Close to where Rev. Creech’s church now stands a failed Shaman forfeited his life after he promised but unsuccessfully treated a native child for a life threatening illness. Dozens of the girl’s clan members placed a pole across the unfortunate shaman’s throat and seated themselves on either end thereby making it impossible for any single individual to be accused of his death and so suffer his vengeance from the after-world. We’re sure Rev. Billy only makes promises he can keep now-a-days so there’s little chance of him suffering a similar fate.

Warren Vaughn, Bay City homesteader and the County’s first teacher, claimed Garibaldi’s first settler was marooned here in 1851 by his angry Captain. Charley Farwell was the cook aboard the CALUMET which put into Tillamook Bay to escape stormy seas. Charley volunteered to pilot the ship across the bar, claiming to have done it before on a previous voyage. Unfortunately for Charley and his shipmates, the vessel grounded and the decks were swept by huge waves. Captain Fishnor went to his cabin for a pistol to shoot Charley, but luckily (for Charley) a large wave lifted and freed the ship carrying it safely into the calm waters of the bay. Buoyed by his good fortune, Charley confidently instructed the captain to anchor in what, at low tide, proved to be a dangerous anchorage atop a huge rock. It’s no surprise the crew considered Charley a bad luck Jonah . Lucky for him he was put ashore and left behind (before the captain ever found his gun).

At that time only a couple of dozen pioneers were living in small settlements around the Bay. As it turned out, Charley was a better craftsman than seaman. He built a water wheel in Hobson Creek to run a lathe. As more settlers moved to Tillamook County he made a handsome living manufacturing and selling chairs and tables. Some might say Charley Farwell established the first of many wood products plants to spring up in the area.

Garibaldi was overshadowed (quite literally) for many years by Hobsonville, a settlement built on top of Driscol Point in the 1870’s (now Hobsonville Point). The Smith Lumber Mill operated on the site. Today, both the mill and the town of Hobsonville are long gone. The lower portion of the Point was excavated in the late 1960's to build the Highway 101 fill across Larson Cove between Garibaldi and Bay City.

In 1918 Cummings-Moberly (from Texas of all places) built a sawmill in Garibaldi on what is now the Old Mill property. Thanks to the construction of the P. R. & N Railroad, Cummings-Moberly had a distinct advantage over the Smith Mill which relied on coastal schooners to transport its lumber. Shipping by rail meant the new mill was not subject to the tides and weather as were ships. Notwithstanding, Cummings-Moberly went broke in 1920 and was taken over by the Whitney Company which operated until 1924 when it was sold to A.B. Hammond.

Under Hammond the mill became one of the largest on the West Coast. He was a benevolent employer who, in slow market times, built houses for the workers to keep them busy. By the late 1920’s Garibaldi was known as a “company town” providing homes for mill personnel, a boarding house at the Whitney Inn, and some of the best baseball teams on the west coast. Hammond built a smoke stack to keep from suffocating the town’s populace. Standing beside the stack was a large electric generating plant fired by wood waste. In 1930 the wooden “G” was erected on the steep slope behind the City proudly proclaiming, “We are Garibaldians”. The big “G” and the smokestack remain to this day as does the water tower which was necessary to provide sufficient water pressure to fight fires. The Hammond Mill also provided the City’s first fire truck (a 1924 Model T hose-bed truck which the City still owns) along with the men to fight the fires.

When the Great Depression caused the closure of the Hammond Mill in 1935 Mr. Hammond owned a fleet of ships, a railroad, and dozens of logging camps. Ultimately, as a result of the flagging economy, each of the divisions was forced to close. When A.B. Hammond died in 1935 his assets had to be sold to pay the inheritance tax. Garibaldi soon fell into a malaise of unemployment and empty houses.

In 1943, during World War II, the Tillamook Naval Air Station was completed south of Tillamook to house blimps used to patrol the waters off the Oregon coast against attacks from Japanese submarines. It’s a little known fact that a number of incendiary balloons were launched by the enemy into Tillamook County hoping to set forest fires. The remaining hanger at the blimp base, now an Air Museum, represents the largest clear-span wooden structure ever built.

During the War a large housing facility known as Biak was built near the Old Mill site. The Coast Guard had a compliment of 125 personnel in Garibaldi, housed in rented and private homes. Loggers and mill workers worked six days a week, ten hours a day to keep up with the demand for lumber.

By the end of the war the mill had but one employee... a watchman. Most of the buildings had fallen into disrepair. In 1947 the Nicolai Company converted a portion of the mill into a veneer plant to make plywood using salvage timber harvested from the Tillamook Burn. A year later the Oceanside Lumber Company built a large sawmill to cut dimensional lumber, mining timbers, and railroad ties. This mill became the third largest in the State.

The Oregon-Washington Plywood Company operated on the site until 1974. The mill had become such an integral part of the community that local residents could hardly believe it closed. Mr. Sachs, of SAKS Fifth Avenue fame, was a principal stockholder and personally came to hold a closing garage sale at which every last typewriter and file cabinet were sold. Nothing was left but empty old buildings which sat vacant for a number of years.

Over the years one of the most interesting experiments in the area was an electrically-powered sawmill built in the late 1920's by George Watt on Electric Creek (across Miami Cove from the Old Mill). Shortly after it was completed a flash flood swept it away, before it ever cut its first board. (Now you know how Electric Creek got its name).

The only sawmill in Garibaldi today is the Erickson Hardwood mill owned by Weyerhaeuser Corporation. It specializes in producing western hardwood (alder) furniture lumber. This is a modern, “state of the art” facility and operates at full capacity (running two shifts a day).

At their peak, the local mills probably employed as many as six hundred workers in a variety of wood product plants including wood shingles and shakes, dimensional lumber and plywood. At its peak, Garibaldi’s population grew to more than 1500 full-time residents. The two-room school expanded to eight rooms and there were a hundred students enrolled in the high school.

A couple of years after the Oregon-Washington mill closed, a local group acquired the salvage rights to the improvements but before they could demolish the buildings Jerry Creasy and George Smith stepped in and bought the property “lock, stock and barrel”.

Creasy was determined to save the old buildings and spent much time, effort, and money doing so. One roof alone was four and a half acres and had to be replaced. In addition to his maintenance efforts, Creasy built new buildings including the recreation hall and the restaurant / tackle shop.