Curiously Named Locales: Cape Disappointment, Washington

 

Photo credit: Stefanie/Smile4Travel.de

    When my father first got wind that we were visiting Oregon, he mentioned that I should be
sure to drive out to Astoria, where he had once been on a fishing trip. I remembered Astoria as the location for parts of the 80s classic The Goonies. So, we followed US Route 30 along the river through its collection of sad little towns out to the mouth of the Columbia. We drove out onto one of the piers and had a beer and some very good crab cakes, but it was there that I first noticed the bridge. Towering high above the waterfront, but dipping down so it skimmed just above the surface of the water stood the Astoria-Megler Bridge. It looked like an excellent ramp to get an '02 Honda Accord going very, very fast. 

    Zipping across the four miles of very low bridge, the longest continuous truss bridge in North America it turns out, we journeyed into Washington, up Highway 101 west into the curiously named Cape Disappointment. Still riding a wave of automotive adrenaline, we had a good laugh about the name, but it stuck in my head. What was the provenance of such a dismal choice?

    The story goes that in 1788, British fur trader John Meares came across the mouth of the Columbia, but was stopped from entering it due to a series of shallow shoals collectively called the Columbia Bar. Of note, this is one of the most dangerous bar crossings in the world and is known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. Unable to locate the river's entrance, Meares continued south, convinced that the mouth of the river was only a bay, which he called Deception Bay, and the promontory to the North? Cape Disappointment.

Sources:
parks.wa.gov
nps.gov
Wikipedia: Cape Disappointment
Wikipedia: Astoria-Megler Bridge
Wikipedia: Columbia Bar

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