Neahkahnie Mountain

Neahkahnie Mountain
Neahkahnie Mountain from the North.
Highest point
Elevation	1680+ feet (512+ m)
Coordinates	45°44′49″N 123°57′06″W / 45.74696°N 123.951783°W / 45.74696; -123.951783Coordinates: 45°44′49″N 123°57′06″W / 45.74696°N 123.951783°W / 45.74696; -123.951783
Naming
Translation	The place of the supreme deity (Tillamook)
Geography
Neahkahnie Mountain Tillamook County, Oregon, U.S.
Parent range	Northern Oregon Coast Range
Topo map	USGS Nehalem

Neahkahnie Mountain is a mountain, or headland, on the Oregon Coast, north of Manzanita in Oswald West State Park overlooking U.S. Route 101. The peak is part of the Northern Oregon Coast Range, which is part of the Oregon Coast Range. It is best known for stories of Spanish treasure said to be buried either at the foot of the mountain, or on its slopes.

In earlier times, Native Americans would set fires to clear the mountain slopes so deer and elk would have tender vegetation to eat in the spring. Pioneers afterwards did the same so their cattle and sheep would have grass to graze on. Since at least 1990, however, this practice was discontinued and the slopes are heavily forested in many places.

The name comes from the Tillamook language, although according to Lewis A. McArthur, an Oregonian geographic historian, the meaning of the word is controversial. Neah-Kah-Nie (other spellings, although obsolescent include "Ne-a-karney" and Ne-kah-ni) is translated as "the place of the god", whose name has been transcribed as Acarna.

A legend, dating back to the mid-1800s and the first Hudson's Bay Co. employees to arrive in the area, claims the mountain conceals a lost treasure, hidden by Spanish sailors in the late 16th century. There are various versions of the legend, but the most common ones involve a group of sailors carrying a chest up the hillside, then digging a hole and lowering the treasure inside. As the story goes, one of the sailors then plunges his sword into one of the men with them, apparently an African slave, and his body was then thrown in on top of the treasure; the idea being, Native Americans would not disturb a man's grave, so keeping the treasure under a dead man would prevent the Native Americans—who, in most versions of the story were watching the activity closely from nearby—from digging it up.

The "lost treasure," subject of the 2006 movie Tillamook Treasure, has been searched for by hundreds of people over the years, some resorting to earth-moving equipment and others digging by hand. During the 1930s, two treasure hunters died when their excavation caved in on them.