Owing to the coast being frequently blotted from view, and to the fact that this stretch of sea is swept by furious storms, the plight of the mariner making to or from the Columbia River became exceedingly precarious. The worst tragedy of these waters was enacted on the dark and stormy night of January 3, 1881, when the sailing-ship _Lupata_ lost her way and went to pieces on the rocks off Tillamook Head. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that an outcry arose for protection along this lonely reach of Oregon’s jagged shoreline. The authorities responded to the agitation by the promise to erect a lighthouse, once they should have decided the site, which was the really perplexing question. In the first instance it was thought that its location upon the mainland would suffice, but a survey betrayed the futility of such a choice. The light would be too elevated to be of any service; for the greater part of its time it would be rendered invisible by land fogs. Then, again, it would mean cutting a road for a distance of twenty miles through heavy, undulating country and primeval forest to gain the point, as the verdant sea of green timber extends to the very brink of the cliffs. After prolonged consideration, it was decided to erect the light upon the Tillamook Rock. This is a hard mass of basalt, rising boldly from the water to a height of 120 feet, which, when viewed from one side, presented the appearance of a clenched fist. It stands about a mile off the mainland, twenty miles south of the Columbia River mouth, and drops plumb into the sea, where the lead gives readings ranging from 96 to 240 feet. The whole area of the rock is less than one acre, and it is split almost in two; another isolated knot of basalt, upon which the seas break heavily when a storm is raging, rears its shaggy head into the air near by at low-tide. The only possible landing-point is on the east side, where there is a beach sloping upwards sharply from the water to the crest. When the ocean is roused the sight certainly is terrifying. The waves fall with shivering force upon the base of the rock, to rush up its ragged sides and sweep right over its crest in a dense curtain of angrily frothing water and whipping spray.