The Peter Iredale
A Rusted Relic of the Pacific’s Wrath
Welcome to the Sunken page of Gothic Dust Diaries, where the sea’s forgotten tales whisper through time. This Friday, we wander to Clatsop Spit, Oregon, where the skeletal remains of the Peter Iredale stand as a gothic monument to maritime ambition and nature’s power. Join me for a four-minute voyage into this iconic shipwreck’s history.
In 1890, the Peter Iredale, a four-masted steel barque, was crafted in Maryport, England, for Iredale & Porter’s shipping fleet. Stretching 285 feet, it was a marvel of maritime engineering, built to haul grain across oceans. On September 26, 1906, under Captain H. Lawrence, it sailed from Salina Cruz, Mexico, bound for Portland with 1,000 tons of ballast and 27 crew, including two stowaways. Nearing the Columbia River’s treacherous mouth—known as the Graveyard of the Pacific — a thick fog and fierce southeast gale struck on October 25. As the crew awaited a pilot, a northwest squall drove the ship onto Clatsop Spit, snapping three masts with the impact’s force.
Miraculously, all aboard were saved by a lifeboat from Hammond, Oregon, and sheltered at Fort Stevens. Plans to refloat the ship faded as storms embedded it deeper into the sand. Stripped for scrap, its steel hull was left to rust, a weathered sentinel against the Pacific’s relentless waves. Today, within Fort Stevens State Park, the Iredale’s bow and masts jut from the sand, a photogenic ruin drawing visitors at low tide, where one can walk its eroded frame.
The Peter Iredale’s decay mirrors the gothic beauty of time’s passage—no ghosts, only the haunting silhouette of a lost era. Its rusted bones, framed by crashing waves, evoke a maritime elegy.
Join me next Friday for another Sunken tale on Gothic Dust Diaries. Until then, let the Iredale’s weathered grace linger in your thoughts.
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