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oregon coast
January 16 to 22, 2009
Issue 35, Vol. 4
Our 191st Edition
oregoncoasttoday.com
central coast
Shipwrecks!
ALSO ON THE BEACH
13 H. PAUL BRUNCKE: ‘I smell pancakes!’
15 COASTAL CARVERS: These cut-ups promise fun for all ages
6 IN CONCERT: Neskowin swoons for Baltic invasion
Pianist Andreas Zlabys
performs in Neskowin with
the Vilnius Quartet.

On the cover ■
The remains to be seen ...
... and some that are buried,
too. Two shipwrecks that still
haunt the central coast
By Niki Price
Oregon Coast Today
Do you prefer your shipwrecks well-documented and
photographed, so that you may pore over every fatal error
and imagine the scene in vivid detail? Or do you like a
good mystery, a relic of unknown age, name and origin,
lying silently and patiently beneath the sands of time?
In north Lincoln County, we’ve got one of each. In
Boiler Bay, just north of Depoe Bay, low tides reveal
the remains of the J. Marhoffer, a steam schooner that
came aground there in 1910. Siletz Bay,
in south Lincoln City, is home to the
remains of what might, or might not,
be the 1860 brig Blanco. We’ll start
with the obvious, and leave the vague
for later.
J. Marhoffer
Some people who visit Boiler Bay
State Park, or drive past the cove during
a winter storm, might assume it
was named for the roiling action of the
ocean. Early in the history of Lincoln
County, locals called it “Brigg’s Landing,”
after one of the pioneering families
here. For the past century, however,
it’s been known to all as the home of
the boiler, what’s left of the J. Marhoffer.
The 175-foot schooner was one of the small freighters
that by the early 20 th century were making regular
trips off the Pacific Coast. On May 18, the Marhoffer
was bound for Portland under the command of Captain
Gustave Peterson. The crew members’ accounts say that
she was doing about 9 knots, pushed north by a tailwind
off Yaquina Head.
The first engineer, they said, was taking a nap when the
second engineer tried to light a new gas torch, an invention
he had never used before. He lost control of the
flame, which quickly spread throughout the oily engine
room and down to the steamer. The engine continued
to turn, burning so hot that none of the crew could get
close enough to try and flood it. Captain Peterson gave
the order to abandon ship, altering his course for the
rocky shore three miles east. Peterson’s wife, the ship’s
dog and half the crew were dispatched to a lifeboat that
headed for shore. The captain and the rest of the crew
followed in the second lifeboat a few minutes later.
The burning ship was easy to see from Depoe Bay, and
by the time it came ashore there were people waiting
anxiously onshore. Tony Wisniewski, a long-lived Depoe
Bay resident who was a boy in 1910, described the landing
like this:
“I could see a small speck drift astern of here, and I
figured it was the lifeboat with her people. Then she
came charging in belching flames, sparks and smoke like
a volcano,” Wisniewski told Stan Allyn, who later related
the tale in his 1982 memoir, “Heave To! You’ll Drown
Yourselves!”
18 • oregon coast today • 16 january 2009
They may have gotten it all wrong. It’s possible
that the ship wreckage at Schooner
Creek (shown at top) was not a schooner
at all, but a brig, the Blanco (undated photo
courtesy of North Lincoln County Historical
Society). But there’s no doubt about the
Boiler in Boiler Bay: it came from the J. Marhoffer,
which caught fi re and drifted ashore
in 1910 (photo above, courtesy of the
Lincoln County Historical Society). At left,
physicist Bradley Matson and his colleagues
use the Beachcomber 1 to fi nd the precise
location of the Siletz Bay wreckage in 2005
(photo courtesy of Bradley Matson).
“She piled onto the rocks with a helluva crunching
crash, heeled way over to starboard, then lay there burning
like a blast furnace. All of a sudden her tanks exploded
and shot timbers, chunks of steel and flame clear
up into the trees behind me, a quarter of a mile away,”
Wisniewski told Allyn.
Tony’s mother, Mrs. Andrew Wisniewski, saw the
wreck from her home in Lincoln Beach, about two miles
north. Seeing the lifeboats headed for the mouth of
Fogarty Creek, she took off her red sweater and waved
it frantically. She was hoping, she told her son later,
to signal a safe place to land. The crew on the lifeboat,
however, thought the red flag meant danger. They turned
around and rowed three miles south to Whale Cove,
where they landed safely on the beach. The only fatality
was the ship’s cook, who was severely burned. The rest of
the crew and passengers, 19 in all, made it safely to shore.
Nearly a century later, low tides in the former Briggs
Landing reveal a rusty boiler, about 12 feet in diameter,
with two large “eyes” looking south toward the cliff-top
Boiler Bay State Park. You can see it from the park at
low tide.
During extreme low tide events, you can walk down to
it from a rough trail off Hwy. 101, just north of the park
entrance. The small pullout, with room for about three
cars, is marked by a rusty iron pipe, mounted upright in
the bluff, that probably came from the Marhoffer, too.
Brig Creek?
One of the defining features of Lincoln City is Schooner
Creek, which empties into the north end of Siletz
Bay near SW 51 st Street. It was so-named
because, until about 15 years ago, the ribs and
wreckage of a 100-foot-long ship protruded
through the sands at the creek’s mouth.
No one is sure of the boat’s name or origin.
The most solid historical evidence comes from
the correspondence of Ben Simpson, who
worked for the Indian agency in Siletz. In
1864, he wrote the following to H.H. Luce of
Coos Bay: “A large brig named Blanco, from
San Francisco, was wrecked a few days hence
at the mouth of the Siletz River. I have just returned
from an examination of the vessel. She
is a total wreck; her masts are gone, her deck
broken in, her hull is split from deck to keel,
and I fear her crew are all lost.” Simpson goes
on to detail the items he salvaged, and those
he found in the possession of Indians.
In 1949, writer Ben Hur Lampman found
another citation on the fate of the Blanco,
from the “Pioneer History of Coos and Curry
Counties,” published in 1898. It states that the
brig was made in North Bend, by a member
of the well-known Simpson shipping family,
in 1860. This source confirms that the Blanco
drifted into Siletz Bay, bottom side up, in
1864, and was a complete loss.
But the brig Blanco is not the only candidate.
Other ships lost in the area include the
schooner Sunbeam, which disappeared in
the 1880s, and the 113-ton schooner Uncle
John, lost off Cape Foulweather in 1876. Or,
perhaps it is the schooner Phoebe Fay, which
stranded north of Cape Foulweather in 1883.
It’s been difficult to do anything but wonder.
Siletz Bay gets sandier every year, and no one
has seen this skeleton, schooner or not, for a long
time. But it hasn’t been forgotten; in fact, in 2004 Lincoln
City Visitor and Convention Bureau director Sandy
Pfaff asked Beaverton physicist and imaging specialist
Bradley Matson to attempt to locate the wreck.
Matson and his colleague Gerald Sandness used
historic photos of the wreck to narrow down the search
location. They made a geophysical map of the area using
global positioning system coordinates, so that they
could precisely identify the area’s landmarks. Then, in the
spring of 2005, they attached four magnetometers to a
wheeled cart (dubbed The Beachcomber 1) and made a
checkerboard survey of the area: north to south, and east
to west. He released his findings to the LCVCB in 2008.
“The idea was, simply, to look for anomalies in the
magnetic field. These are very subtle changes, and it was
our hope that we would find subtle changes in the shape
of a ship,” Matson said. “We found something I’ll call it
an anomaly in roughly the same orientation and size of
what is pictured in historic photographs. It’s in the right
place, the right size the right shape. But that’s not very
conclusive.”
The only way to confirm that these readings, blue and
magenta dots on hist computer screen’s field of green,
would be to start digging. But that will have to wait for
an archeological survey, which isn’t on any scientist’s priority
list. For now, this shipwreck must remain shrouded
in mystery.
“Preservation is the most important thing. This is a site
of historic and archeological significance, and it’s illegal
to disturb it,” Matson said.

oregon o coast
FREE!
October 23 to 29, 2009
Everything to see and do in
Lincoln & Tillamook counties
PATCHWORK
13 A day in a Tillamook
pumpkin patch? Smashing!
350 IS A MAGIC
NUMBER
17 Coast activists set out to send
CO 2
down for the count
it takes a
Village
LINCOLN CITY
LINCOLN CITY
11 Would it kill you to take in a
night at the theater?
newport’s ‘nessie,’ and other curiosities,
next door to the aquarium • page 17
ISSUE 23, VOL. 5 • oregoncoasttoday.com
Follow the coast: twitter.com/octoday
EDDIE MONEY & LOVERBOY
OCTOBER 30 & 31
"It's Better at the Beach!"
Live Music • Outdoors • Events Calendar
Dining • Puzzles • Tide Tables
EDDIE MONEY
LOVERBOY

Whoa, Nessie! Pirates and pliosaurs at
Aquarium Village
By Niki Price
Oregon Coast TODAY
When people drive down SE Ferry Slip Road, in
the South Beach district of Newport, they’re usually
headed for the Oregon Coast Aquarium. They’re
hoping to see Triakis semifasciata, the leopard shark,
and Haematopus bachmani, the black oystercatcher,
among many other creatures native to the Pacific
Northwest and its
oceans.
What they don’t
expect is Kronosaurus
Queenslandicus,
a 25-foot
long marine reptile
with massive
jaws and sharp
teeth that are
impressive from
any angle. She’s
extinct, for one
thing. For another,
as the scientific
name suggests,
this big creature
once swam in
the waters near
Queensland,
Australia, rather
than the marshes
of Yaquina Bay.
This life-sized
model of a Kronosaur,
painted bright blue and mounted near the entrance
to the Aquarium Village, is one of the coast’s
favorite curiosities. The creature, called “Nessie,” has
beckoned tourists into this shopping and industrial
complex since 1992. Over time, she’s been joined by
a host of Aquarium Village mascots, including an
orca whale, a walrus and a crew of full-sized resin
pirates, both bearded and busty. There’s a miniature
pirate ship, built on site to occupy squirrely kids, and
a much larger vessel that was rescued from certain
doom in a casino on the Nevada-Arizona border.
They’ve helped John Tharp, the facilities manager
at Aquarium Village, transform this circa-1970s
industrial park — or part of it, anyway — into a
shopping mall and mixed-use attraction. Customers
can have lunch, browse gift shops, see glassblowers
at work and pose with a short-necked pliosaur, all in
one afternoon.
Each figure has a story. Nessie, for example, once
toured the country as part of a traveling exhibit on
prehistoric animals. Back then, she could move her
fins, eyes and mouth, and had a mechanical voice box
that probably roared. She first arrived in Newport
as the anchor attraction at the Zoo-seum, which
opened in Aquarium Village around the same time
as the aquarium, in 1992.
The Zoo-seum offered a number of semi-scientific
displays, including live snakes and fish fossils, as
well as man-made waterfalls and prehistoric models.
Eventually, Tharp said, the owner defaulted on his
lease and left town without his kronosaurus, which
became the property of Aquarium Village.
It was Tharp who first called the critter “Nessie,”
or the Yaquina Bay Sea Monster, and who concocted
the story that is posted on the base: “Caught by a
Newport Industrial Parks Nightwatchman off the
South Jetty, during a terrible storm at midnight on
June 2, 1992.”
“People really love her. Last year, when she was
dismantled for repairs, we had people coming in,
asking ‘Where’s Nessie? We brought our friends to
see her and they’re from South Dakota,’” Tharp said.
“And as silly as it sounds, some people really believe
the story. I talk to people who look at it and say, ‘I’m
not going in that bay.’”
As ferocious as she looks, Nessie has one natural
and unstoppable enemy: the coastal elements. Her
mechanical parts have been welded together, but that
won’t stop the rust. The skin on the frame, which
is like a rubber inner tube stretched over foam, is
slowly turning to powder.
on the cover
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• 541-574-8787
6 • oregoncoastTODAY.com • october 23, 2009

“We’ve done everything we can, but she’s just not
made to be outdoors. She only has a couple more
years left, we think,” Tharp said.
The Plexiglas walrus and orca statues that decorate the
main shopping lane will fare better. Before it came to
Aquarium Village, the orca was a mobile photo prop that
moved from wayside to wayside. Tharp found them both
in the back yard of a retired resin artist in Lincoln City.
They handle the salty air well, although they must be
refurbished and resealed every other year.
Tharp said he tries to buy at least one pirate statue a
year. He finds them at the ASD Trade Show, held each
spring in Las Vegas, where he also helps his wife Sally
pick out merchandise for her shop, Even Tide Gifts.
Once they arrive at Aquarium Village, however, Tharp
is always worried that the pirates might “walk away.” So,
they are humbly rolled out each evening, housed in a
locked storage unit overnight, and re-positioned on the
following morning.
Captain Tharp has even commandeered a pirate ship
for his motley
crew. He
first spied it
more than
five years
ago, in the
River Palms
Casino in
Laughlin,
Nev. Fully
loaded, it’s
more than
35 feet long
and 10 feet
across, with
cannons that
blow smoke
and speakers
that blast a
programmable
selection
of sea shanties.
It was
made in the
The cannons on this replica pirate ship, which was recovered from a Laughlin, Nev., casino, used to fi re whenever any player had a good video
poker hand. Now, this ship resides in the Buccaneer Bay Mall, inside Aquarium Village in Newport. At left, 2-year-old Blake Leech steers the
mini-ship at Aquarium Village. TODAY photos by Niki Price.
workshops of Creative Presentations, in Valencia, Calif.,
in 1994, as an attraction for the casino floor.
Ten years later, casino managers had decided that the
ship blocked too many slot machines. They told Tharp
that he could have it for free, provided he could remove it
within five days, and he assembled a crew of friends and
associates for the challenge in July 2004. The boat was
partially dismantled, lifted onto rollers, eased through a
custom-cut door and loaded onto a tractor-trailer for the
journey north, with a few hours to spare.
“On the last day, when we were cleaning up, everybody
at the casino was really nasty to us. We couldn’t figure it
out,” Tharp said. “We found out later that they had made
book on our project, and the shortest bet was two weeks.
One guy we talked to lost $1,200. If we had only known,
we could have paid for our entire trip with one bet!”
Today, the pirate ship sails through soap dishes and
figurines, inside the cavernous Buccaneer Bay space
next to Nessie at Aquarium Village. The space is an now
an outlet for gifts and other merchandise, but someday,
Tharp hopes to surround the vessel with retail and
restaurant spaces. This well-traveled reproduction could
be another tourist attraction, especially if Tharp and his
crew can restart the hydraulics and sound system.
Nessie, the Kronosaurus Queenslandicus who is already
100 million years old and who has been through a lot,
probably would mind a bit.
Is there an attraction or event on the Oregon Coast about
which you’d like to know more? Let us do the digging for you.
Contact Niki Price at niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.
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oregon coast TODAY • october 23, 2009 • 7