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Hug Point State Park, Cannon Beach

(340+ reviews on the web)

State Park Nature / Park

Hug Point State Recreation Site is a state park on the northern Oregon Coast in the U.S. state of Oregon. Administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, the park is open to the public and is fee-free. Amenities at the park, which is 5mi south of Cannon Beach along U.S. Route 101, include picnicking, fishing, and a Pacific Ocean beach.Hug Point, the cape for which it is named, lies in the park.Late 19th century stagecoaches that used the beach as a highway "had to 'hug' this particular point even at low tide to get around it", hence the name Hug Point.Roadbed around the headThe primitive roadbed was chipped into the head by unknown persons around the turn of the 20th century to facilitate access to Arch Cape, which at the time was accessible only by driving a horse-drawn or motorized vehicle on the beach. This sometimes necessitated driving directly into the surf—an inconvenience in a stagecoach or wagon, but a real hazard in motorcars, which were far easier to get stuck and were disabled and immobilized by relatively small waves. A persistent rumor claims that the roadbed was made by a man whose brand-new Maxwell car got stuck and was submerged by the incoming tide in the 1920s; however, photographic evidence shows the road was there well before 1920, and Oregon popular historian Ralph Friedman interviewed a stage driver who remembered using it before World War I.

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Reviews

TripAdvisor

frank t

we went here twice both times for over 2 hours just an amazing beach to visit with awesome ocean views more »
Joyflnoise

We were driving south from Cannon Beach and saw the sign for Hug Point Falls. We pulled over into the parking lot and walked to the beach to the falls. My guesstimate is about 300 feet from the top of... more »
Terry R

Before there was a coast highway, hug point was a place that was used to get farther up the beach. AS horse-drawn cart or an early car could drive up the beach and then at low tide, drive around the p... more »