Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

Beneath the waves, among the sea moss and rocks, there lies a hidden treasure on the central Oregon coast.

In the middle of Boiler Bay, just north of the town of Depoe Bay, rests a century-old boiler for which it is named. It only comes out when the tide is especially low – as it was last weekend – an opportunity for treasure hunters to explore the remaining piece of one of the most spectacular shipwrecks in Oregon history.



After staring out at the bay for over a year, imagining the boiler submerged beneath the waves, I was determined to go out there and find it for myself.

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Oregonian File Photo

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THE SHIPWRECK

On the afternoon of May 19, 1910, the J. Marhoffer, a 174-foot steam-powered schooner, was powering its way north along the Oregon coast. Captain Gustave Peterson, who was travelling with his wife, was steering the ship toward the mouth of the Columbia River, the trip going smoothly so far.

The schooner reached the central coast in the afternoon, when the chief engineer, off duty, fell asleep in his cabin. He left the engine room under the watch of the first assistant engineer, who that day was laboring over a blow torch that refused to light.

Presumably frustrated, he had pumped the torch up to high pressure when it suddenly exploded, spewing flaming gasoline everywhere. Before he could even begin to put out the fire, the engine room erupted into flames. Seeing black smoke pouring through the ship, Captain Peterson called for the engine room to be flooded, but it was already too late. The schooner quickly became engulfed in an inferno, and was now hurtling out of control.

READ MORE: 8 shipwrecks that still haunt the Oregon coast

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Peterson steered the ship toward shore and ordered an evacuation. The crew loaded into lifeboats and quickly paddled out into the ocean, where they watched in horror as the schooner crashed into the rocks, burned for a few minutes, then exploded, leaving only the bow and the boiler intact. The ship’s cook, Frank Tiffany, was the sole victim of the wreck.

Depoe Bay resident Tony Wisniewski, who witnessed the event from a bluff when he was a boy, recounted the event to The Oregonian in a 1977 interview: “All of a sudden her tanks exploded and shot timbers, chunks of metal and flame clear up into the trees behind me, a quarter of a mile away. If I hadn’t ducked behind a tree I probably would have been smashed by all that hurling debris.”

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

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FINDING THE BOILER

I first read the story of the J. Marhoffer in 2017, while doing research for a story on shipwrecks on the Oregon coast. It's not clear what happened to the bow, but the boiler of the ship was left alone to rust at the bottom of the bay, visited infrequently by intertidal adventurers. Fascinated, I made it a priority to find the boiler – when I discovered that last weekend's low tide would be reach an eye-popping -2.82 feet at Boiler Bay, I knew the hunt was on.



Rising first thing in the morning, I made the short drive from Lincoln City down to Depoe Bay. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I started at the Boiler Bay State Scenic Viewpoint, a park known for its dramatic seascapes and occasional viewing of resident gray whales. Standing at the northern point, I trained my binoculars into the bay, scanning for some rust-colored cylinder in the surf.

But with the sun glaring down over the ridge above the bay, it was all but impossible to get a good look. So, back in my car, I drove a half-mile north up Highway 101 to a small dirt pull-out on the left side of the road. It was already nearly full – a good sign.

Leading down into Boiler Bay, this area is officially a research reserve protected by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, used to study intertidal life. A sign at the trailhead issues warnings about collecting sea life, but makes no prohibition on public access. Still, the trail down to the bay is very steep, the walk out onto the rocks is extremely slippery, and the tide itself remains a lurking danger.

Fair warning: If you go here, do so with extreme caution.

After a short and fruitless search on the southern end of the bay, I trained my attention to the north. Walking on slippery strands of kelp, slipping on pads of sea moss and avoiding big tide pools filled with urchins and anemone, I carefully made my way into the bay, where on the other side of a long rock jutting out toward the ocean, I saw it.

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

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Now rusted a deep brown, and covered in small barnacles, the century-year-old boiler is tucked away in a nook of rocks and tide pools, partially submerged in a pool of water, as hidden as it could be in the middle of the bay.

The boiler is about 12 feet in diameter, and roughly twice as long. It’s held its shape over the years, and compared to photos taken in 1972 and 1983, looks not much worse for the wear. It’s either a testament to its construction or the power of the ocean to preserve, but either way it’s a win for the next few generations of shipwreck hunters on the coast.

As I circled the boiler, enchanted by the artifact, a group of researchers exploring the bay began to make their way back to shore. That was my cue to head inland myself, lest the tide trap me out with the remains of the wreck.

Back on the bluffs, now aware where to look, I could see the rusty boiler poking out from the rocks. It was strange how peaceful it looked there now, resting where catastrophe had flung it more than a century ago. It may have belonged to the J. Marhoffer once, but now the boiler belongs to the ocean, as much a part of Boiler Bay as the rocks, sea moss and kelp that surround it.

--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB

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Jamie Hale/The Oregonian

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