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OREGONSCAPE
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| Oregon has many geologic landmarks: Crater Lake, Mount Hood, the Columbia River Gorge, Fort Rock, and others. They were formed so long ago that most people think of them as having been here forever. |
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One landmark on the Oregon coast followed a different timeline. Jump Off Joe was a sea stack, a steep island of rock, situated on the beach near Newport. The pounding waves of the Pacific Ocean separated the sandstone from the shoreline cliffs in the middle of the nineteenth century and sculpted it into a shape that resembled a woman's high-top shoe. The arch perfectly framed a view of Yaquina Head lighthouse, sometimes called Foulweather Light. |
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Jump Off Joe shrank a bit every year as the waves continued to erode it, especially during winter storms. By the early 1910s, the "toe" and the arch were about all that remained. In late January 1916, a winter gale hit Oregon, and the arch collapsed. The surf continued to batter the remnants until only a few rocks remain today to show where this favorite Nye Beach landmark had been. |
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The name was apparently suggested by the prosaic need to climb over and jump down from the rock in order to travel along the beach — not, as tourist tales would have it, from an Indian legend about a young warrior leaping from the top because he could not be with his true love. |
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| —Mikki Tint, Special Collections Librarian, OHS Research Library |
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