Wreck of the Peter Iredale

The Peter Iredale was a four-masted steel sailing ship built in England in 1890. On October 25, 1906, she ran aground on Clatsop Spit near the mouth of the Columbia River, and all 27 people aboard, including two stowaways, made it ashore. Her captain is said to have saluted the wreck with "May God bless you, and may your bones bleach in the sands."

Today the bow, a few ribs and parts of the masts still stand on the beach in Fort Stevens State Park. In 1942 a Japanese submarine shelled the fort; the wreck was in the line of fire but wasn't hit, and it spent the rest of the war tangled in barbed wire strung along the beach. Back in Astoria, climb the Astoria Column for a view over the whole river mouth.