The lumber ship George L. Olson ran aground in Coos Bay in 1944

This mystery is solved.

“The maritime historians who have looked at this all nod their heads and say, ‘Yep. That’s the one,’” said  archaeologist Steve Samuels Wednesday afternoon.

The rotting bow and mast stranded in the sand a mile and a half north of Coos Bay’s North Jetty is the shipwreck of the George L. Olson.



The archaeologist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management at Coos Bay sent out a press release around 4:30 announcing the discovery — not of the old beached schooner, but the name.

The George L. Olson was a 223-foot-long wood-hulled schooner, launched on Jan. 22, 1917, from the W.F. Stone shipyards in Oakland, Calif., Samuels said. Originally, it was named the Ryder Hanify, built for J.R. Hanify and Company of San Francisco. By May, it was hauling lumber, powered by a 1,000-horsepower steam engine.

But as was typical of the time, the vessel was sold. By December at year’s end, it and six other lumber ships were sent to France and the Ryder Hanify became the Gabriel. About five years later, the L.A. Times reported steamship owner Oliver J. Olson purchased the vessel and renamed it the George L. Olson. It moved lumber for another 20 years until running aground at Coos Bay’s North Jetty on June 23, 1944.

Aground at the jetty

“According to unconfirmed reports the George Olson, plowing toward the bar, was caught in the suction of a ship entering the jaws and thrown off course onto the rocks. Attempts were made immediately to move her but she settled back. No one was reported injured.” The Coos Bay Times reported on June 24, 1944

Three days later, the ship was refloated after some of the lumber was taken off its decks. The vessel was pulled farther into the harbor to see whether it could be saved. Apparently, it was then grounded between Charleston and Empire alongside the shipping channel.

Over six months, crews salvaged lumber off the steamship. Samuels said 500,000 board feet of lumber was recovered off the ship. Some of it built the Baptist Church in Charleston.

Come early December 1944, the Coos Bay Dredging Company got the contract to salvage the doomed Olson. Within a couple weeks, the vessel was towed out to sea and cut loose.

Ultimately, it ended up grounded and breaking apart about a mile and a half north of the jetty on the spit. There it sat for several years. In the late 1940s, locals who ventured onto the spit in search of Japanese glass floats and other storm debris came across it. It made for a great picnic spot. They took photos of their kids and friends, grinning and standing on its deck. Then sands covered it. Storms moved sand off the George L. Olson in the 1960s, but then it again disappeared from view — and from most people’s memories.

The evidence

Photographs are what helped solved the mystery.

Local folks dug out old family photos. Samuels, other local archaeologists, and Robert Schwemmer, the West Coast Region Maritime Heritage Coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began comparing notes — and photos. Schwemmer dug through the agency’s archives. He narrowed his list of possibilities to five ships, Samuels said. He had one nice photo of the Ryder Hanify, taken looking at the bow, docked in San Pedro, Calif.

“Once we lined up the photographs and saw how similar the ships are, it alleviated a lot of doubt in my mind,” Schwemmer said in the press release.

The nameplate is long gone, but the portholes match. The mast matches.

“That was the key, having a close-up high-res photo of the bow,” Samuels said.

Their work’s not done. Researchers know the story of the how the ship wrecked. They would like to know more about how it made it onto the North Spit. They also think there is more of it buried in the big dune that’s eroding away with each storm.

Over the weekend, an estimated 3,000 people crowded out to the beach to see the remains of the George L. Olson.

But Wednesday afternoon, the tide ebbed and the curious were gone. The brown planks of the Olson’s side rose from the sand on the deserted beach, as the wind picked up out of the southwest suggesting another storm will come.