The one thousand six hundred eighty-foot-high Neahkahnie Mountain was one of the most treacherous headlands on the coast. Native residents once traveled by canoe or on foot to reach neighboring communities, moving easily along stretches of water and hard, smooth sand, but at Neahkahnie they used a narrow trail made by elk and deer. Eventually cattle and horse-drawn buggies traveled this precarious path, but when cars appeared on the coast in the 1920s, it became necessary to build a safer road. The new Oregon Coast Highway, built by the State Highway Department, was completed in 1941.