Washington/Oregon/Pacific Ocean Tripoint - United States
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The A-Team
N 46° 16.546 W 124° 03.132
10T E 418931 N 5125225
The border between the states of Washington and Oregon meet the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River in the western United States.
Waymark Code: WM16H75
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 08/02/2022
Views: 1
In 1848, a bill titled "An Act to Establish the Territorial Government of Oregon" was passed to designate Oregon as a US territory. At the time of creation, the Oregon Territory covered an area including what is now Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and portions of Montana and Wyoming.
After settlers of the area north of the Columbia River began to complain that their needs weren't being satisfied by the territorial government, two meetings were held to discuss the creation of a new territory. The Cowlitz Convention was held on August 29, 1851, and the Monticello Convention was held on November 25, 1852. The meetings resulted in a petition being sent to the US Congress, and bill H.R. 348 was introduced in the US House of Representatives on January 25, 1853. The bill was passed and signed into law on March 2, 1853, creating the new Washington Territory. The bill began as follows:
An Act
To establish the Territorial Government of Washington
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act, all that portion of Oregon Territory lying and being south of the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, and north of the middle of the main channel of the Columbia River, from its mouth to where the forty-sixth degree of north latitude crosses said river, near Fort Walla-Walla, thence with said forty-sixth degree of latitude to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, be organized into and constitute a temporary government, by the name of the Territory of Washington.
With the passage of this act, the western portion of the boundary between the Oregon and Washington territories was defined as the main channel of the Columbia River. The channel has since shifted from its 1853 location due to dredging and shifting sandbars, but the official border still follows the 1853 route. As it approaches the coast, the border follows within about a mile of the north shore, cuts across Baker Bay, and then curves around the north end of Sand Island. It then passes close by the east side of Cape Disappointment and around the long Jetty A breakwater, before turning and heading nearly due west and just past the tip of the North Jetty. This puts the border much closer to the north side of the river's mouth than it would have originally been in 1853.
As a water tripoint, there isn't a marker that can visited. The exact location is hard to define due to varying definitions of where the Columbia River's mouth lies, but it can generally be assumed to be near Cape Disappointment. The closest land access to the tripoint area is from the Washington side at either Cape Disappointment Lighthouse or the North Jetty, both of which are publicly accessible.