Mariners and historians estimate there have been more than 3,000 shipwrecks along the Oregon coast and in its bays and harbors. The most infamous might be the New Carissa, which ran aground near Coos Bay in 1999 or, of course, the Peter Iredale near Warrenton in 1906.
Newport residents witnessed the wreck of the Condor on Nov. 17, 1912, in Yaquina Bay.
The Condor was owned by the Waldport Lumber Co. and was used primarily to ship lumber from Alsea Bay in Waldport to Yaquina Bay in Newport. It would also make trips to Portland to pick up shipments of various goods.
The Condor was nearly lost at sea several times earlier in 1912, once by getting stuck in a storm for four days, and another time by losing its propeller after getting tangled in a fishing net.
On Nov. 17, 1912, it lost its propeller again while entering Yaquina Bay and began taking on water. The three members of the crew were rescued by the United States Life Saving Service — precursor to the Coast Guard — of Yaquina Bay.
The wooden ship was abandoned at the north jetty and was a total loss.
In 2021, Faith Kreskey, then the executive director of the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center told Oregon Coast TODAY that the Condor “was this little underdog of a boat.”
“They started building her in 1897 and from the beginning things went wrong, like the funding kept drying up,” Kreskey said. “It was kind of a cursed ship by the time they were finally able to begin running it around 1910 and, by then, she was already a bit outdated. They would get stuck a lot if the weather was rough and the media was always roasting them: ‘Oh, the boys are stuck again’ that kind of thing. They got tangled in a fishing net in Astoria, then ran out of gas on a run to Portland. They ran out of gas again then went adrift in Coos Bay, then trying to leave Coos Bay they got tangled in a chain attached to the dock. In 1912, they dropped the propeller in the Yaquina Bay and that was it for the unlucky little ship. I don’t think anyone was particularly surprised when it finally wrecked for good and, luckily, nobody was injured which would have made the story less amusing.”
- Historical photos and some text provided by the Lincoln County Historical Society in a partnership with YachatsNews. To learn more about the society and local history, visit its website here. A sampling of historic images from the LCHS collection can be seen at OregonDigital.org
