One Historic Summer: The Bayocean Bunch
Summer 1921. A ragtag group of Reedies. One goal: Keep a struggling resort town running.
“Investigate Bayocean,” an ad in the 1921 edition of The Griffin reads. “You’ll like it.”
In the early to mid 20th century, a community on the Tillamook Spit boasted all the trappings of a resort town: a dance hall, tennis courts, a 1000-seat movie theater, a bowling alley, and the Northwest’s largest natatorium. Down the southern half of the spit, you could view both the Pacific Ocean and the Tillamook Bay, hence the name its founders gave it: Bayocean. The upscale resort town has since been washed away, reclaimed by the sea. But for a moment in time, Bayocean was considered “The Playground of the Pacific Northwest,” and, as expert Jerry Sutherland recounts in his 2023 book Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon, for an even shorter blip in the summer of 1921, the resort town was run by an eager ragtag group of Reedies.
Before that summer began, though, the Reed community gathered on a warm May day in Eliot Chapel. Pioneering faculty member and eventual third president of the college Norman F. Coleman took to the stage to deliver an address for the unveiling of a commemorative tablet to honor Reed students who had died during World War I, a period he referred to as “a shadowing menace” still haunting them all. “Today you are to unveil a memorial tablet in this college bearing the names of students, some of whom only a short time ago were talking over with me in this building their exercises in English,” Coleman said. “They are gone and we are here, and we ask ourselves why.”
Perhaps it was that difficult question, and the shadow of war, death, and tragedy that encouraged Reedies to head to the coast and run a resort for the summer. By then, Bayocean had suffered from bad press due to a growing number of court cases between lot owners and resort runners, which led the resort to fall into receivership. When the receivers couldn’t afford maintenance costs, 25 Reedies got on board to run it for the summer of 1921, led by John Van Etten ’21, James Hamilton ’22, and James Gantenbein ’22.
John, an economics major, had served in WWI as a second lieutenant only a few years prior. James Hamilton, better known as Jimmie, involved himself in many aspects of Reed—The Quest, drama club, football, basketball, track, house leadership, and capping his time with presidency of the senior class. James Gantenbein, also often referred to as Jimmie, or sometimes Judge (which is how we will refer to him here, for clarity’s sake), was said to have “done his duty” while at Reed as a senior councilor, president of the junior class, and organizer of the first Reed Day. He did all of this while attending Reed and the Northwestern College of Law—now part of Lewis & Clark College—at the same time. “He is conservative but eccentric—witness his white socks,” says the 1922 Griffin.
This trio and 22 other Reedies spent six weeks preparing for a July opening of Bayocean. They started out by building a dance hall on the north side of the pier, across from The Mitchell, the mercantile at the heart of town. The natatorium was kept running by a couple Reedies—not an easy feat since it had a particularly finicky boiler. That summer, the Reedies also managed the hotel and acted as nurses. It became the busiest season yet for Bayocean. That may be in part thanks to a letter Jimmie wrote “To the Teachers of Oregon,” encouraging them to spend some time at Bayocean that summer. He said the students’ “youthful energy, efficiency, and ingenuity” was accompanied by “every effort…to quell any distrust of college ability that may exist.”
Not everything went to plan, though, of course. In late July, George Henny ’20 climbed a telephone pole (he’d set up a radio station to send daily reports to a receiving Portland station) which fell over and fractured part of his skull. Dr. A. E. Rockey of Portland was telegraphed to tend to George, and he reportedly drove 112 miles in a record four hours to operate successfully on him. George, who originally studied physics at Reed, went on later to become a physician himself.
When the summer ended, some Reedies went on to continue school, or, already graduated, left to start their careers. Jimmie became superintendent of the schools of Vanport, a WWII federal housing project. He refused to segregate its schools at the request of the Oregon Housing Authority, and hired some of Oregon’s first Black schoolteachers. Later, he returned to Reed as director of admissions, serving in the role from 1950 until his death in 1958. Judge went on to serve as a career foreign service officer, traveling around the world from the Dominican Republic to Romania to Denmark, where he and his wife received Helen Keller at the American embassy in Copenhagen in 1957. Other Bayocean Reedies went on to work in healthcare, city government, or finance. A few, like Jimmie, returned to Reed in some capacity, teaching or serving on the Board of Trustees.
After the fact, their time at Bayocean would be referred to as that “one historic summer.” Historic it was—in the shadow between world wars, those 25 Reedies, despite the odds, kept the resort town running, and regular vacationers complimented the crew for providing the best experience in years. No matter what Bayocean’s ultimate fate was, for that one season, it was Reedies who kept the dream of it alive.