Talk on N. Oregon Coast About Terrible Tilly Will Get Into the Dangers, Legacy

Published 03/19/25 at 7:15 a.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Seaside, Oregon) – One of the most iconic and infamous landmarks on the Oregon coast gets the lecture circuit treatment late in March as Terrible Tilly is the subject of the March 27 History & Hops event in Seaside.

The event happens at Seaside Brewing Co. (851 Broadway) at 6 p.m. and is free.

Tillamook Rock Lighthouse looms large on the horizon of the north Oregon coast and in the imaginations of those who see it. Education Supervisor Julia Triezenberg will give a talk on the harrowing construction and use of “Terrible Tilly,” as well as its legacy of protecting mariners on this dynamic coastline.

The remote place has been both a blessing and a curse in history.

Julia Triezenberg is with the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria. She coordinates monthly adult education offerings and the volunteer program at the museum. Originally from Michigan, Julia graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in American Culture and is currently working on a M.S. in Educational Leadership and Policy at Portland State University.

For further information, please contact Emily Halverson during museum hours at 503-738-7065, or send an email to seasidemuseum@gmail.com.

Construction on the lighthouse began on October 21, 1879, with the only means of getting on the purportedly cursed rock by a slightly bizarre rig of a giant sling carrying the men on a thick line from boat to basalt. This was extremely precarious at best, and although accounts on this differ, many say the first man who walked onto the rock slipped and fell into the sea. He was a master mason sent to do the first survey of the area about a month before building started.

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His death frightened locals and thus no one in the area would work on it. Indeed, regional papers and public opinion decried the endeavor as too dangerous. Video: What It's Like to Get Near Terrible Tilly, N. Oregon Coast Mystery Island 

That coverage sent those in charge down another precarious path: they hired only people from out of the area who knew nothing of the incident and kept them on a ship off Cape Disappointment. Those men awaiting deployment were literally sequestered from the truth of how dangerous it was. See Tales from an Oregon Coast Lighthouse: Aloof Terrible Tilly 

After blasting cleared a spot, construction crews stayed in tents atop Tillamook Rock and somehow, miraculously, no one else died.

Terrible Tilly was finally lit up on January 21, 1881 and shut down in the late '50s. The last man aboard the lighthouse actually moved to Heceta Head Lighthouse for awhile. Surprisingly, One Man Connects Oregon Coast Lighthouses at Heceta Head, Terrible Tilly

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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