Post Offices and Postmasters

In Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon, I discuss changes in the name, location, and postmaster of all of the post offices on Tillamook Spit and Cape Meares, from the first in 1891 to the last in 1954. Below, I summarize that progression and list every postmaster who served during the sixty-three year span. 

The first post office on Tillamook Spit was dubbed Barnegat by Absalom Hallock, who set up shop in his cabin just north of Jackson Gap. When he died a year later, Webley and Mary Hauxhurst's daughter Lizzie (wife of Bert) and then daughter-in-law Carrie (wife of Joseph) ran the Barnegat Post Office out of their homes on Biggs (now Pitcher) Point. Cape Meares Lighthouse keepers then served as postmasters until the construction of Bayocean Park began. For more on this era, see Barnegat Before Bayocean.  

Mary Jones (wife of construction superintendent George Jones) stamped Barnegat, and Bayocean after the name was changed, on envelopes inside a tent. The next superintendent, Jim O'Donnell, took on the role himself, but continued working out of a tent until workers finished the administration building - later known as the Bayside Inn - and amusement pavillion, where it was also housed from time to time. (The photo to the left and those below are from the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum.) 

For most of its forty-one years the Bayocean Post Office was located in

The Mitchell, and Ida Mitchell served as postmaster, although her husband Francis performed the duties most of the time.

When Gladys Hoover took over as postmaster, she moved the post office into one of the Cottage Park bungalows she and her husband Russell owned.

At the end of October 1951, the Bayocean Post Office was moved to a new building at the southwest corner of 4th Street and Bayocean Road on the mainland (Cape Meares) section of the Bayocean Park subdivision. By then, erosion of the sand gaps on the spit let waves wash out the road so often that delivery into town was unpredictable. The name was changed to reflect the new location a year and a half later. Ten months after that, the Cape Meares Post Office was shut down and mail delivered by automobile thereafter. 

The list of postmaster assignments below is from the microfilmed Record of Appointments of Postmasters, 1832-1971, at the National Archives and Records Administration. I viewed them at the Seattle branch originally, but a digitized version at  Ancestry.com now makes them more accessible. I corrected misspellings caused by transcribers working with poor handwriting and/or deteriorating media. 

Barnegat Postmasters

• Absalom B Hallock          28 Apr 1891
• Lizzie Biggs                     26 Mar 1898
• Carrie A Hauxhurst          20 Jun 1898
• Hermann Grossheim        18 Oct 1900  
• George Hunt                      3 Feb 1902
• George H Higgins            17 Aug 1901
• Mary Jones                      14 Sep 1907

Bayocean Postmasters

• Mary Jones                       24 Feb 1909
• M J O'Donnell                      3 Jul 1909
• Walter L Johnson             14 Nov 1913
• David C Baker                    7 Oct 1915
• Geo J Burckard                  9 Dec 1915
• Francis D Mitchell            26 Sep 1918
• Arthur L Springer                5 Feb 1923
• Mrs Cosia N Oakes            3 Sep 1924
• Miss Ida J Mitchell             8 Sep 1926
• Stockwell H Cornelius      12 Oct 1926
• Mrs Betty H Watkins         18 Apr 1928
• Mrs Ida J Mitchell             23 Apr 1930
• Mrs Gladys L Hoover        1 Aug 1946
• Mrs Evelyn H Reeder      31 Jan 1950

Cape Meares Postmaster

• Mrs Evelyn H Reeder        31 Mar 1953 - 31 Jan 1954

To find other articles of interest, see the Index tab.

Bayocean The Playground of the Pacific Northwest

The same year (1913) that Southern Pacific Railroad produced its first "Sea Shore Tillamook County" brochure, it collaborated with the T. B. Potter Realty Company to produce "Bayocean The Playground of the Pacific Northwest." Its seven pages feature drawings and photos of Bayocean Park and a Pacific Railroad & Navigation Co. map showing how to get there. The entire brochure can  be downloaded from the State Library of Oregon online. I include page 6 here because it shows seven of the fifty-nine houses eventually destroyed that I discussed recently in Bayocean Homes and Their Fate and cover extensively in Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon.