Brig. Gen Isaac Ingalls Stevens was; governor of Washington Territory and delegate to congress, 1857-1861. He was killed while leading the 79th Regiment New York Volunteers, at Chantilly, Virginia, against the Confederates, September 1, 1862. He was major-general, and had seized the colors of the regiment after the color-sergeant had fallen. Gov. Stevens was highly energetic and constantly active, and was very popular with the people of the territory. He was at Andover, Massachusetts, March 18, 1818. In 1839, he was graduated from West Point. He served with distinction in the War of Mexico. The route of his journey to the territory in 1853, laid out and surveyed, by him, as one for the railroad, was largely followed by the Northern Pacific. A biography, by his son, Hazard Stevens, is a meritorious book: Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Houghton Mifflin & Company, 1900. Stevens visited the eastern states in 1854. He left Portland March 29, 1854. His report on his council with the Blackfeet, dated June 8, 1854, appear in the Oregonian, July 29, 1854. In 1863, during the Civil War, Fort Stevens was constructed and remained on for the next 84 years as the principal guardian of the Columbia. The fort, in Oregon, was named for I. I. Stevens by Cpt. George H. Elliott, USCE, who built the fortifications there and at Cape Disappointment1 in 1864. Fort Stevens post office operated from February 20, 1899 to January 31, 1949. Edward M. Philebaum was first postmaster.
 In 1955, Clatsop County gave a large parcel of land immediately south of Fort Stevens to the state for inn in the State Parks system. In 1968, the parks system obtained control of the military reservation via long term lease from the USCE and most of the area is now Fort Stevens State Park. It is not only one of the most popular camping areas but also attracts large numbers of visitors to Battery Russell and other historic gun emplacements. In 1980, Fort Stevens: Oregon's Defender At The River of the West, a detailed history of the post by Marshall Hanft, was published by the State Parks and Recreation Division.

 The town of Hammond, located on the western terminus of the railroad on the south bank of the Columbia, about six miles west of Astoria, was named for Andrew Benoni Hammond, a pioneer of the Pacific Northwest. He was born in New Brunswick July 22, 1848, and in 1866-1867 came to Washington and then settled in Montana, where he lived about 30 years, successfully engaged in mercantile and railroad affairs. From 1895 to 1898 he built the Astoria and Columbia River Railroad, later acquired by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway Company. In later years, Hammond lived in San Francisco, where he died January 15, 1934. He was one of the foremost business men of the Pacific Coast and was interested in timber, lumber, shipping, fishing and various mercantile enterprises. Hammond post office, formerly Flavel, was established June 10, 1897, with Ellen M. Lally first postmaster. Silas B. Smith says that the Clatsop name of the Indian village near the present site of Hammond was He-ahk-stow.

Astoria

 Local history has its roots in the indigenous tribal cultures that inhabited the area for thousands of years. The Lower Columbia River Basin was home to numerous tribes of Chinook Indians who settled both banks of the Columbia and developed highly evolved social systems based on maritime, trading and fishing activities. Chinooks settling on the south side of the river were known as Clatsops and at least 15 of their villages spread from Tongue Point and Knappa, in the north, to Tillamook Head (45° 57' 54"), south of Seaside.
 During the great age of exploration and discovery, the Clatsop came in contact with Europeans who first washed ashore as survivors of shipwrecks and later as members of expeditionary forces. There are numerous stories of sailing ships wrecked along the treacherous Oregon Coast, with survivors being found and nursed back to health by local Clatsop. Many of those sailors assimilated into the culture, living out their days as members of the clan.

Indian Burial Ground Meneloose Island 1909

  For centuries, tales of the Great River of the West drove seafarers to search the Pacific coastline for its source. Both Spanish and British vessels sailed and explored the coast of Oregon as early as the 1500s. However, it wasn't until May 1792, that Captain Robert Gray (1755-1806) and the crew of the Columbia Rediviva became the first representatives of the US to sail across the bar at the mouth of the Columbia. This discovery, almost by accident, gave the US government claim to the area in its continuing territorial disputes with Great Britain and Spain.
 With the Louisiana Purchase came impetus to secure a direct land route from the westernmost border of the US (until then the Mississippi River) to the Oregon territories. To that end, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) appointed Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838) to lead an expedition to the Pacific Northwest and return. Traveling westward from Saint Louis in 1803, the explorers arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River and built a stockade in November for the winter of 1805-1806. Returning to Saint Louis in September of 1806, the expedition released meticulously kept records and observations of their journey, thus serving to launch a westward expansion of settlers.
 Trappers, traders, and adventurers were the first of the migrants to settle the area around the mouth of the Columbia. Lured to remote outposts of the Northwest by the lucrative fur trade, a number of companies dispatched representatives to settlements and forts throughout the region.
 The two most influential of these trading organizations were the Hudson's Bay Company and John Jacob Astor's (1763-1848) Pacific Fur Company. In 1811, agents of the Pacific Fur Company built a stockade on the site of what is now 15th and Exchange streets and named it "Astoria." The first American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains, the outpost fell under British control on December 13, 1818, due to the War of 1812. Astor's request for reinforcements to protect Astoria had been rejected by the US government; thus he was compelled to sell the fur trading operation to the North West Company, based in Montreal. Renaming it Fort George, the outpost was expanded and fortified. It remained under British control and continued to be used for fur trading operations until the 1814 Treaty of Ghent was observed, and control officially transferred back to the Americans in an 1818 ceremony. However, the North West Company was too established in the region to compete against; thus efforts to revive Pacific Fur Company operations in Astoria were abandoned. The North West and Hudson Bay companies merged in 1821 and in 1824 Fort Vancouver was constructed 100 miles upstream as their new headquarters. Astoria's importance declined rapidly and the desolate outpost deteriorated.
 In the late 1830s, missionaries arrived, and by the early 1840s, a number of pioneer settlers chose to make permanent homes around Astoria, Clatsop Plains and Skipanon River. The area began to develop into a regional settlement and commerce point. The first post office west of the Rocky Mountains began operation in 1847 at J. M. Shively's Astoria residence.
 Completed for years earlier, erection of the first sawmill in the area ushered in an era of logging that became one of the two defining industries in the region for a century. In its heyday, there were dozens of mills and logging operations around Clatsop County, employing generations of area families in the woods and at the mills. From the beginning the industry had a lucrative export trade, using Astoria’s waterfront to load lumber bound for ports upstream, along the West Coast, and across the Pacific.
 Astoria's location as a seaport gave the area its second, and most influential, industrial foundation. All that surrounds the seafaring life came to bear upon forming Astoria's municipal, cultural and business growth. The Columbia and waters of the Pacific Ocean were a wealthy source of fish, particularly the five species of Pacific salmon. As early as 1824, a fish trade had been established with Asia, some Pacific Islanders, and down the coast as far as South America. Over the next 100 years the fishing industry boomed, spurring developments of the area and an influx of residents. By 1877 there were 36 canneries in Astoria, employing a large work force that attracted a variety of immigrants. In the years between 1890 and 1910, a large influx of Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish immigrants resulted in a predominantly Scandinavian population that remained permanently.
 In addition to the fishing industry, other maritime activities included boat and ship building, a naval base at Tongue Point, a Coast Guard station, the establishment of the Columbia River Bar Pilots to safely shepherd ships across the treacherous entrance to the Columbia, and a shipping industry that made Astoria a major port.
 By the turn of the century numerous towns had grown up around the Columbia Pacific Basin, providing services and supplies to what were once isolated farms and wilderness homesteads.

Case Hotel, Newport, Oregon 1940

Warrenton

 Perhaps one of the first experiments in the "planned community" began in 1870, when Daniel Knight Warren purchased 160 acres along the Skipanon River and spent the next few years improving and platting the land. In 1896, Warren offered cash rebates of various sums to anybody building a residence on lots in the area. He also imported saplings to border the planned streets and tried, unsuccessfully, to secure the rights for dredging a channel deep enough to accommodate maritime trade in the Skipanon. By 1899, the town of Warrenton had been incorporated.
 The community of Lexington, which was laid out in 1848, was the forerunner of Warrenton and was the first county seat of Clatsop County. Lexington was a post office in the early history of Oregon. The site of Lexington was near the south limits of Warrenton and about where Skipanon Station was situated. The name Lexington fell into disuse and for many years the territory where Warrenton is now was known as Skipanon. Small boats went up Skipanon River to the place know known as Skipanon, or Upper Landing, and there unloaded passengers and goods for Clatsop Plains. Warrenton near the mouth of the river was platted by its proprietor in 1889 and the development of the community immediately began around Warrenton, with the result that Skipanon ceased to be of equal importance. Most of Skipanon is now within the city limits of Warrenton, although it is about a mile away from the business part of Warrenton.
 As the new century began, both Warrenton and Astoria urbanized. Railroad travel to and from Portland began in 1898, and by 1922 the automobile began to replace a local streetcar system that had operated in Astoria since 1905. With increased transportation options came an influx of tourists. Weekenders took the train to Astoria and on into Seaside, necessitating development of lodging and entertainment in the area. The tourist industry continues to thrive.
 Once an isolated outpost of trade, the area became more cosmopolitan as this century progressed. Both world wars had effects upon growth. As a strategic point, the mouth of the Columbia became a hub of activity, both at the Tongue Point naval base in Astoria and at Fort Stevens artillery base in Warrenton. Logging and fishing continue to support part of the population, while the influx of visitors is a driving force behind the cultural, political and financial life of the community.

Clatskanie

 Silas B. Smith, Clatsop County Pioneer, is quoted in Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. I, p. 322, to the effect that Tlatskani was a point in the Nehalem Valley reached by Indians from the Columbia either by way of what we now know as Youngs River, or by way of Clatskanie River. The Indians used the word Tlatskani by applying it to certain streams indicating the route they took to get to Tlatskani, and not as the name of the streams for Indians were not in the habit of naming streams. Non-indian settlers carelessly applied the name to the stream. Clatskanie River in Columbia County, and Klaskanine River in Clatsop County were thus named, and Clatskanie, a town, developed near the point where the former joined the Columbia. Clatskanie is the spelling adopted by the USBGN for the features in Columbia County. The locality Tlatskani in the hills south of Clatskanie River was named for the Tlatskani Indians,11 who lived along the river and in the Nehalem Valley to the south. There are many variations in the spelling of the name. A news story in the Rainier Review, October 2, 1931, says that the town of Clatskanie was first known in an Historical Records Survey release printed in the Review, March 27, 1936.
 Clatskanie post office, located about 18 miles west of Rainier, was established December 1, 1871, with Enoch W. Conyer, first postmaster.

Central Oregon Coast
Photo Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

Gearhart

 Since it was founded in 1918, Gearhart has grown slowly. And that's the way residents of this small town a mile and a half north of Seaside like it.
 Philip Gearhart was a pioneer settler on Clatsop Plains, and on the part of his donation land claim is now located the summer beach resort of Gearhart. Gearhart's record is shown on land office certificate 3,109. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1810, arrived in Oregon in 1848, and settled on his claim in 1850. Gearhart died in September 1881. Incorporated in 1918, the community and has managed to duck the mass wave of migration comprised of those with a yearning to live on the Oregon Coast. However, despite its low profile, Gearhart's population experienced a spurt within the last few years, jumping from 1,045 in 1995 to 1,215 in 1998.
 Gearhart post office was established June 11, 1897 with John Waterhouse first postmaster. It was discontinued October 27, 1961 when it became a contract branch of Seaside.
 Gearhart Golf Links is the oldest golf course in Oregon, established in 1892 as a nine hole course and extended to the current 18 hole setup in 1913.

Seaside

 The life of the transportation tycoon, Ben Holladay, was more closely connected with San Francisco than merely through the marriage of his son, Ben Calvert Holladay, to the woman who subsequently became Ms. William G. Irwin and the mother of the late Ms. Paul I. Fagan.
 We were recently introduced to the flamboyant Holladay, an early-day figure somewhat neglected by historians, through the beautiful Canton, China, once the property of his erstwhile daughter-in-law, currently on display at the California Historical Society.
 For one thing, in the 1860s, Holladay established headquarters here in an office at the corner of California and Liedesdorff streets. It was for the steamship company he was operating, sending vessels from this port to the Southern states, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Hawaii, and the Orient.
 This was after he had sold his Overland Mail & Express Company, a Colorado corporation and the largest stage line in the world, to the Wells Fargo Express in November 1886. The transaction, by the way, marked the latter's first connection with the extinct Pony Express.
 When the firm founded and operated by William Russell, Alexander Majors and William Waddell ran into financial difficulties, they'd been forced to borrow heavily—principally from Holladay—whom they considered a trusted friend. But Holladay, never hampered by scruples, had been nursing a grudge against the trio for a long time.
 "Big Ben lured them deeper and deeper into the trap he was hoping to spring," wrote Ellis Lucia in his vastly informative biography of that giant of the Old West.
 The machinations are too complicated to go into here, but Holladay managed to force Russell, Majors and Waddell to the wall and the stagecoach system was advertised for sale on December 31, 1861. However, other creditors secured an injunction postponing the sale for several months.
 Hope that winter profits could stave off the creditors and save the line vanished when the weather turned vicious, schedules were disrupted and passenger trade dwindled.
 It went on the block again the following March. Holladay made the highest bid of $100,000 for the company, franchises and equipment.
 "Russell, Majors and Waddell lay in financial ruins," wrote Lucia. "Ben Holladay grabbed the reins of the foundering stage and pony express system and destroyed his chief freighting rivals with a single blow."
 The line was incorporated in his Overland Mail & Express Company, and he then controlled almost 5,000 miles of stagecoach lines and the lucrative mail contracts for them all.
 When ribbons of steel rails began to fan out across the continent, the ever canny Holladay saw the handwriting on the wall.
 "Since Wells Fargo didn't agree that the stagecoach was doomed, Ben began to play them like a big fish," observed Lucia. "In the past he's turned down several overtures from the company. Now he did an about-face without making it too apparent."
 After playing hard-to-get for a bit, he finally sold out to Wells Fargo. But it cost the company a pretty penny. Holladay received $1.5 million in cash; $500,000 for feed and provisions on the route, and $300,000 in Wells Fargo stock plus a seat on the board of directors. Wells Fargo then merged the West’s three major lines into a single operation.

 Ben didn't stay long with Wells Fargo... he clung to the contention that the railroad would kill staging... sold his stock and was well out from under before the ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, collapsed the express empire and faced the company with ruin.

 Holladay, who could turn his full attention to other interests, headed for the flourishing West Coast to concentrate in this city, for the time being, on water instead of railroads.
 During WWI, the US army leased the Seaside House to house troops of the Spruce Division. Later they used the hotel as an isolation hospital for infections or seriously ill veterans of the war. The army left the building a total wreck. The furnishings were stored and the appointments were destroyed.,
 In 1920, Simon Benson leased the building hoping to restore it to a fine hotel but after thoroughly assessing the damage and reconsidering the costs of remodeling, he purchased many of the furnishings, sending them to his Portland hotels and left the building to the owner. In 1921, the property was sold to Millard Holbrook. His plan was to demolish the buildings and make the grounds into a golf course. The grand opening of the golf course was in 1923.
 In 1924, the property was sold to a man named Keysee and Ivan Humeson. In 1978, James B. Cartwright bought out Keysee’s interest in The property. Cartwright sold his part to his son Charles. J. B. Cartwright died in 1937. In 1947, Charles Cartwright bought the Humeson interest in the gold course property. Again the golf course property was sold to Fred Fulmer. The golf course continues today similarly to its original plan. From the second floor restaurant at the north edge of the gold course once can still see the outline of the old race track.

  The Turnaround at Seaside is designed as the official end of the Lewis and Clark Trail. In 1990, a bronze statue of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark was installed facing the ocean at the west end of Broadway at the Turnaround on the center of the Prom. The monument commemorates the 18 month, 4,000 journey from Saint Louis to the Oregon Coast.
 The City of Seaside commissioned Elizabeth MacQueen to create a lifesize statue of Sacajawea (1789-1812) for Seltzer Park.

Seaside, Oregon 1996
Photo Courtesy of Rev. Marilyn A. Riedel

Ecola

 Some time prior to 1900, J. Couch Flanders of Portland was attracted by the name Ecola and he applied it to a group of cottages owned by the Couch family on the south flank of Tillamook Head about two miles north of what was then known as Elk Creek. The name was attractive, and people living near the mouth of Elk Creek asked for a post office to be named Ecola, which was established November 25, 1910, with Lester E. Bill, first postmaster. To avoid confusion with Eola, Dr. Rodney L. Glisan and L. Allen Lewis then changed the name of the Couch family cottages to Ecola Point, because of the prominent projection nearby. Ecola Point is between Chapman Point and the main promontory of Tillamook Head. The name Ecola is no longer used for the post office, which closed to Cannon Beach May 25, 1922. Cpt. William Clark applied the name ekoli to Elk Creek in 1806. George Gibbs, in his Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, gives the word ehkoli, a whale and indicates that it came from the Chinook work ekoli, which the accent on the first letter. The modern spelling with the accent on the middle syllable is, however, firmly established.

Cannon Beach

 Lt. Neil M. Howison, US Navy, arrived in the Columbia River July 1, 1846, in the schooner Shark for the purpose of making an investigation of part of the Oregon Country for the government. The Shark wrecked on attempting to leave the Columbia on September 10, 1846, and part of her deck and a small iron cannon drifted ashore south of Tillamook head, thus giving the name to Cannon Beach. In 1930, the cannon and the capstan of the Shark were mounted on a concrete base in a turnabout on the east side of US-101 near the north end of the community of Cape Arch and just south of Hug Point State Park. The capstan may not have belonged to the Shark. The City of Cannon Beach has marked both north and south US-101 exits with replicas of the cannon, but the original was located near where it washed ashore. In 1989, the cannon and capstan were removed to Astoria by the Clatsop County Historical Society.
 Cannon Beach is a well-known seashore resort, and is of historic interest.
 While wintering at nearby Fort Clatsop in 1806, Lewis and Clark heard that a whale had been cast ashore here. For the first time during the entire expedition, Sacajawea made a personal request. She wanted to see the whale. "The Indian woman was very impatient to be permitted to go with me and was therefore indulged," wrote William Clark in his diary. "She observed that she had traveled a long ways to see the great waters, and that now that the monstrous fish was also to be seen, she thought it very hard that she could not be permitted to see either (She had not yet been to the ocean)." By the time the group got here, all that was left of the whale was a 105-foot skeleton; nevertheless, Sacajawea was thrilled by the sight. Years later, it was said that the "big fish" was the only part of the entire trip she never tired of telling her people about. A plaque marks the site of the beaching.
 At the south end of Cannon Beach is Arch Cape (45° 48' 10"), which blocks automobile travel on the beach itself. Hug Point, was so called because it was necessary to hug the rocks to get around the point without getting wet. Located about two miles north of Arch Cape, Hug Point originally blocked beach traffic, but a narrow makeshift road was cut around its face in the solid rock. However, some people thought they'd just as soon be drowned as scared to death, and route for automobile travel was abandoned long ago after the completion of the original Oregon Coast Highway. Other important points are Humbug Point, Silver Point, and Chapman Point, which is at the north end and is a southern spur of Tillamook Head. Very much resembling a haystack, at 235 feet high, Haystack Rock is the third largest monolith in the world. It is a prominent sight on Cannon Beach which has done far more than its share to advertise Oregon. Ecola Creek flows into the Pacific ocean at the north end of Cannon Beach. The community has been known by various names including Elk Creek and Ecola, but the Post Office Department in 1922 changed the office name from Ecola to Cannon Beach to agree with the natural feature and to avoid confusion with Eola, where mail was frequently missent. Cannon Beach is about eight miles long. Cannon Beach post office was established May 29, 1891, with James B. Austin postmaster. This office was near Austin Point south of Hug Point, not far from the spot where the old cannon stood and about five miles south of the present Cannon Beach community. The office closed to Seaside November 30, 1901. The office called Ecola located was at the mouth of Elk Creek about five miles north of the previous office. It was established November 25, 1910, with Lester E. Bill, postmaster. The name of the office was changed to Cannon Beach on May 25, 1922, when Eugene C. Lamphere was the postmaster. In 1997, the population of Cannon Beach was 1,425.

Necanicum

 Necanicum post office, located at the Sly place about 12 miles southeast of Seaside on US-26, the Wolf Creek Highway, was established May 25, 1907, with Herman Ahlers postmaster. Originally named for Ahlers, the name was changed to Push on April 13, 1899. Ahlers selected the name Push because he expected the place to turn into an enterprising community. The name was changed from Push to Necanicum on May 27, 1907. Ahlers was postmaster at all three offices mentioned, before the post office at that locality was discontinued January 31, 1916.
 Necanicum River draws many forms of wildlife. The bald eagle is king of the Necanicum estuary where it can often be seen feeding. An omnivorous and opportunistic eater, the eagle will often snatch prey from other birds, or feed on carrion. Necanicum is derived from Ne-hay-ne-hum, the name of an Indian lodge upstream. William Clark named it Clatsop River on January 7, 1806, but the name did not prevail. In pioneer days the stream was known as Latty Creek, for William Latty, who took up a land claim in what is now the south part of Seaside.

Manzanita

 Manzanita—"at the edge of the ocean, at the foot of the mountain"—is a quiet community located at sea level approximately 100 miles west of Portland on US-101 between Seaside and Tillamook on the Northern Oregon Coast.
 Manzanita was named for the local shrubs of the Arctostaphylos group which produces a fruit shaped like little apples. Sweester states that the shrub growing in Oregon is Arctostaphylos tomentosa. It grows at various places along the coast. This post office, serving as a beach resort that was surveyed and platted in 1912, is located about two miles northwest of Nehalem. It established April 10, 1914, with Emil G. Kardell first postmaster. The town of Manzanita, incorporated in 1946, has a population of about 690.
 The Manzanita Beach stretches for nearly seven miles between Neahkahanie Mountain and the Nehalem Bay Jetty where the Nehalem River and Bay meet the Pacific Ocean.

Neahkahnie Mountain

 There has at times been some controversy about the meaning of the Indian name of Neahkahnie Mountain (45° 44' 38"), the bold headland north of Nehalem River. Neahkahnie is a place of romance and mystery. Tales of buried treasure, marooned Spaniards, galleons laden with beeswax candles and such like, have drawn the attention of non-indian explorers for three-quarters of a century. Chunks of engraved wax and curious letters on half-buried stones have been all the more mysterious. Joseph H. Frost's diary of 1841 in Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 35, p. 242, says:

 This mountain is called Ne-a-karny after one of the deities of these natives, who, it is said by them, a long time since, while sitting on this mountain, turned into a stone, which stone, it is said, presents a colossal figure of Ne-akarny to this day. And in our passage over the mountain, which is a prairie on the side next to the ocean, we discovered a stone which presented a figure of this kind.

S. B. Smith says in Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. I, p. 321, that Ne-kah-ni meant the precipice overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the abode of Ekahni, the supreme god. Kee and Frost in Ten Years In Oregon, 1844, p. 343, give the Clatsop word Acarna, meaning chief deity. Ms. Ed Gervias, a Nehalem Indian, is authority for the statement that the name Neahkahnie had its origin in the word used by the supposed Spanish wreck survivors when they saw elk on the side of the mountain, and exclaimed: "Carne," meaning meat. This is probably fanciful. Neahkahnie is one of a number of coast Indian names beginning with the prefix Ne-, which has to do with villages or places where certain tribes lived. These names include also Necanicum, Nehalem, Neskowin, Netarts, Nestucca and Neacoxie. John K. Gill said that a Clatsop Indian told him ne meant a place. Neahkahanie Mountain presents a bold front to the Pacific, and stands 161 feet above the water, an imposing sight.

Nehalem Bay

 The Nehalem were a Salish tribe, formerly living on Nehalem River. Deflot de Mofras gives the name as Nehalem in Exploration, 1844, Vol. II, p. 104. The name Nehalem in Senate Executive Document 39, 32nd Congress, first session, p. 2, 1852; Ne-ay-lem in Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. I, p. 320, by S. B. Smith. The name is used for the town of Nehalem and Nehalem River. The latter flows in all four of the northwest counties of Oregon and cuts completely through the Coast Range. The first bold point extending to the sea north of Nehalem Bay is Neahkahnie Mountain. There is no little romance about Nehalem and Neahkahnie, having to do with treasure and marooned Spanish sailors. In 1927, John K. Gill said that many years ago he had discussed the origin of Clatsop County names with a Clatsop Indian, Jenny Williams, the widow of Bill Williams, who lived near Seaside. Williams informed Gill that the Indian word Nehalem meant "place where people live" and indicated that the prefix Ne used frequently in the Indian names of Northwestern Oregon, meant a place or locality. Nehalem post office was established in August 1870 or 1871, with Samuel Corwin first postmaster. This office was probably about two miles north of the present community at the locality sometimes called Upper Nehalem, which is not now organized. The post office was moved to suit the convenience of the available postmasters and was from time to time at the Hunt, Scoville and Alley places. When John M. Alley was postmaster the name of the office was changed on February 6, 1884, to Onion Peak. By this time the office was some miles north up the valley of North Fork Nehalem River and it was of course named for the nearby mountain, Onion Peak (3057'), a conspicuous landmark. This office was closed April 7, 1893. While all this was going on a new post office with the name Nehalem was established May 12, 1884, with Henry Ober postmaster. This office was at or near the present community and has been in continuous operation since it was established.
 Mohler post office was originally established as Balm in May 1897, with Everett R. Bales postmaster. The office was on Foley Creek, a little above the mouth, and about two miles southeast of the present site of Mohler. In December 1911, the name of the office was changed to Mohler and it was moved to the new location. The change is said to have been made at the request of E. E. Lytle, who built the Pacific Railway and Navigation Company line into that part of Tillamook County. The station and post office were named in compliment to A. L. Mohler, a prominent railroad official and one-time president of the Union Pacific.
 Wheeler, located approximately 23 miles north of Tillamook on US-101 and two miles south of Nehalem, is named for Coleman H. Wheeler, of Portland, a prominent lumberman and sawmill operator, who operated a mill in the community shortly after the railroad was built. Wheeler died about 1920. Wheeler post office was established August 18, 1910 with Frank A. Rowe, first postmaster.
  Hoevet was located near the Wheeler lumber mill, about a mile west of the central business district of the town. The post office was established January 14, 1932, with Clara P. Welton, first postmaster. The office served the extreme west part of Wheeler by Nehalem Bay. Wheeler post office was moved eastward to the business district of the community at the request of local residents. This was done with the provision that an office would be provided to serve the Wheeler lumber mill and its employees, all in the west part of town on Nehalem Bay. The new office was named Hoevet for Charles R. Hoevet, at the time manager of the mill. Towards the end of its existence, the Hoevet post office was serving less than 300 people, and it was discontinued January 31, 1944.
 Brighton, and inland community, is located near the mouth of the Nehalem River, about two miles west of Wheeler in the northwest part of Tillamook County. The town was platted about 1910 with the name of Brighton Beach although it is not directly on the ocean. This place, together with many others in the US, was named for Brighton, a fashionable seashore resort on the south coast of England. The post office was established May 21, 1912, with James R. Minich first postmaster and closed March 15, 1954, when Brighton became a rural station of Rockaway. That office was closed October 31, 1957. The post office and railroad station were near the mouth of Nehalem River.

Rockaway Beach

 Nestled between Tillamook and Nehalem Bays, Rockaway Beach is located along US-101 in north Tillamook County about five miles north of Garibaldi on the Pacific Railway & Navigation Company Railroad. Rockaway post office was established March 22, 1911, with F. P. Miller, first postmaster. For many years the simple form "Rockaway" sufficed but about 1987 it was changed to the more stylish "Rockaway Beach."
 The Rockaway Beach Company projected this summer resort for Portlanders in the 1920s, and named the townsite.
 A community of 1,200 year-round residents, the small coastal town is the center of activity for north Tillamook County, and has seven miles of white sandy beach and windswept dunes accessible from the city wayside in the center of town.
 Twin Rocks, located one mile south of Rockaway on the US-101, was named for two large sea stacks more than 100 feet high in the Pacific Ocean just beyond low tide line. The post office, which served as a summer resort, was established May 25, 1914, with William E. Dunsmore first postmaster. It was designated a rural station of Rockaway March 15, 1954, and was discontinued October 31, 1959.

Tillamook Bay

 The story of Tillamook began on August 14, 1788 when Capt. Robert Gray (1755-1806), an American sailing the American sloop Lady Washington, anchored in Tillamook Bay thinking he had found the "great river of the East." That was the first not until four years later that Gray found the mouth of the Columbia. Gray's stay was short. One of his crew had some difficulty with the Indians and the sailers were forced to leave. The next visitor to Oregon’s shores was William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Clark was there to purchase whale blubber from the Nehalem to replenish the meat supply at his winter quarters in Clatsop County.
 There were three tribes in Tillamook County: the Tillamook, Nehalem and Nestucca. They lived in the areas which now bear their names. They were a peaceful, friendly people, faithful to their tribal rituals. Like most Coastal Indians, they were Flatheads, a mark of distinction among the tribes. The house in which they lived was built with cracks in the roof for the release of smoke from fires. The Northwest Indians were the only North American tribes to build homes of wood. Because of their skill in building and handling canoes, they were called the Canoe Indians. The canoes ranged in size from the tiny duck hunting canoe to the large 40 to 60 man dugout and were sailed to Astoria and California. The Indian population of the county was estimated at 2,200 in 1806 and by 1849 had dwindled to 200.

Tillamook Cheese Factory
Photo Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

Garibaldi

 In 1879, Garibaldi's first postmaster, Daniel B. Bayley, named the town for the famous Italian liberator he admired. The town's namesake, Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), was a fisherman, merchant marine and liberator who cared about common people. His birthday is July 4, 1807 and is celebrated annually through Garibaldi Days the last weekend of July.
 This town of 1000 located under the Big "G" offers a variety of activities for all ages. Clamming, crabbing, surfing, bird watching, beachcombing, and wind surfing are popular. Fishing, both sport and commercial, is active out of Garibaldi's harbor or on Miami River. The US Coast Guard maintains a station there.
 The harbor was charted by explorers Drake, Meares, Cook, Vancouver, Heceta, and Gray, and was on the trade route of the treasure-laden Spanish galleons.
 In 1788, captains John Kendrick and Robert Gray brought the first American fur trading enterprise to the North Pacific Coast in the Columbia Rediviva and the Lady Washington. This was, so far as is now known, the first landing by non-indians on the Oregon Coast and the first landing from an American ship on the Pacific Coast of North America. Gray was also the first American to circumnavigate the globe which he did on this same voyage. Robert Haswell, second mate of the Lady Washington, kept a diary, but notwithstanding the latitudes and landmarks mentioned along the Oregon Coast, it is impossible to trace the course of the vessel with accuracy. H. H. Bancroft (1832-1918), in his History of the Northwest Coast, Vol. I, p. 188, indicates some of the difficulties in interpreting the writing. It is possible that Alsea Bay or Yaquina Bay was seen by the ship. On August 12, 1788, the Lady Washington anchored off Tillamook Bay. On August 14, the ship crossed the bar, and at first the Americans had no trouble with the natives but on August 16, the Indians made a murderous assault and killed Gray's cabin boy, Marcus Lopius, the first person of African decent to reach Oregon. Lopius, who joined Gray's 1788 trip to the Northwest native Cape Verde Islands, was exploring near present-day Bayview, on the northern edge of Tillamook Bay, when he realized an Indian had stolen his knife. When the young sailor tried to recover his property, he was murdered. Two days later the ship got away, and in his dairy Haswell makes the following observation:

 Murders Harbor, for so it was named, is, I suppose the entrance of the River of the West, It is by no means a safe place for any but a very small vessel to enter the shoal at its entrance being so awkwardly situated, the passage so narrow, and the tide so strong it is scarce possible to avoid the dangers.

 Garibaldi is the site of an ancient fishing and whaling village of the Tillamook Indians. Pioneers built seafood plants here. Today it is known as one of the world's finest fishing, clamming and crabbing sites.
 The port opened outside markets for Tillamook County's dairy industry. It was also a major lumber shipping port before the Tillamook Burns of the 1930s and 1945, when billions of board feet went up in smoke.
 Captain Gray Mountain, high ground just northeast of Garibaldi, is prominent from the sea as you enter Tillamook Bay. It was named in 1988 to commemorate Gray's entry into Tillamook Bay. The USBGN met at Garibaldi on August 13, 1998 to participate in the local celebration which included a floral airdrop on the 1420 foot summit. The name was approved by the USBGN in Decision List 8801. Because Gray's cabin boy, Marcus Lopez, was murdered by hostile Indians, the bay was given the name Murderers Harbor.
 The "G" landmark on Captain Gray Mountain was put up by the students of Garibaldi High School. Captain Gray Mountain was dedicated by the National Geographic Names board in 1988, the Bicentennial year of Gray's entrance into Tillamook Bay.

Cape Meares

 Cape Meares (45° 29' 12") is just south of Tillamook Bay, and bears the name of John Meares, one of the most interesting of all the early explorers of the north Pacific Coast.
 Meares, a retired lieutenant of the British Navy, was the most unconventional and interesting personality of all those figuring in these early marine annals. He sailed under double colors, he succeeded as a fur hunter and geographer, he was the pioneer of two great industries, he sought to plant a colony of Chinese men with Kanaka wives, came near embroiling also the new republic of the US in a serious war. There was nothing dull about Meares.
 In 1786, he sailed from Bengal with two vessels, the Nootka and Sea Otter, names redolent of fur and adventure.
 In 1787, English merchants in the British East India Company, thinking to make a profit building ships with the lumber of the well-forested northwest American coast, fitted out two ships, the Felice Adventurer and the Iphigenia Nubiana, and placed them in command of John Meares and William Douglas. They sailed from Guangdon Province with a crew of shipbuilders, carpenters, metal laborers, and sailors.
 Far more men had volunteered for the work than Meares could enlist, indicating the adventurous spirit of the Guangdongese, for these were skilled laborers, and the 1780s were still a relatively prosperous time in China—and there was no pressing need for them to seek a living so far away from home.
 To avoid excessive port charges in China and to evade licenses from the South Sea and East Indian monopolies, a Portuguese partner was taken in, who procured from the governor at Macao, Portuguese flags, papers and captains. In case of need the real masters would appear as clerks or super-cargoes. While little use was made of this scheme, the trick of double colors is condemned as a cheat, closely akin to piracy.
 In May 1788, Meares in the Felice Adventurer arrived on Vancouver Island at Nootka Sound, and for two pistols bought some land from Chief Marquina. He at once erected a little fort, and began an important enterprise. He had brought the framework of a schooner. His ship's company included 50 men, crew and artisans, part of each group being Chinese. This little schooner, the North West America, was the first vessel of this size built in this part of the world and this also was the first introduction of Chinese labor on the Pacific Coast.
 While Meares' organization was engaged in these activities, he himself set sail on an exploring expedition along the coast. He passed the mouth of the Columbia on July 6, 1788, but he failed to identify it as a river. By nightfall of that same day he had discovered and named three important features, the first of which he referred to as Cape Grenville, and the next as Quicksand Bay, the third feature he christened Cape Lookout (45° 20' 16"), and the volume containing the story of his travels has a very fine plate showing this cape together with the remarkable rocks a little to the southwest. Having failed to discover the new river he was seeking, he returned to Nootka.
 It is not easy at this time to identify Cape Grenville. George Davidson of the Coast Pilot supposes it to be Cape Falcon (45° 46' 04").

Cape Falcon

 Cape Falcon is the next cape south of Arch Cape, and has been known in the past as False Tillamook Head, which lies further north. On August 18, 1775, Capt. Bruno Heceta, while cruising along the north Pacific Coast discovered a cape in latitude 45° 43' north and named it Cape Falcon. While this is not far from the correct latitude of what we now know as Cape Falcon, 45° 46', the records of Heceta are so meager as to make it impossible exactly to identify his discovery. Cape Falcon as we now know it derived its name from Heceta, irrespective of what point he originally discovered. Heceta speaks of Cape Falcon, but Fray Benito de la Sierra, one of his chaplains, uses the expression "a range of high hills, to which we gave the name Sierra de Montefalcon." The day of Santa Clara de Montefalco is August 18, and this name was obviously given in her honor. Cape Falcon has been the cause of considerable misunderstanding among students of Oregon history. Greenow, in his History of Oregon and California, appears to have started the trouble by confusing Cape Falcon, or as it was sometimes known, False Tillamook Head, with Clarks Point of View, or Tillamook Head. This error has been perpetuated by both great authorities on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Elliot Coues (1842-1899) and Reuben Thwaites (1853-1913). As a matter of fact Clarks Point of View was on Tillamook head, as is clearly shown by Clark’s description of the view he had from the point and also by two maps in Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, atlas volume. George Davidson, in the 1869 Coast Pilot, perceived this error. However, Davidson was of the opinion that the Cape Grenville of Meares was the same as Cape Falcon, but this seems improbable. At the time of his discovery of Cape Falcon, Heceta also named La Mesa or The Table, putting it some 15 minutes of latitude further south than the cape, with no indication as to whether it was an inland mountain or not. It seems that La Mesa must have been what is now Cape Meares, or some flat-topped mountain inland. It is improbable that the name La Mesa had anything to do with Neahkahnie Mountain. The latitude give for La Mesa is much too far south, and the summit of Neahkahnie Mountain is not prominent and flat as seen from the sea. There are several more imposing and higher points in the immediate vicinity.
 Quicksand Bay seems to be what is now known as Tillamook Bay. Meares' description and pictures of Cape Lookout, beyond all doubt, refer to what we now call Cape Meares.
 The rocks that Meares christened Three Brothers are now known as Three Arch Rocks and form a bird sanctuary that is frequently written about.
 Meares venture proved to be a great success. Not all the Chinese shipbuilders left Nootka Sound for Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia with the North West America. The Nootka fur trading settlement had been augmented by 29 more Chinese settlers brought by Meares and 45 more brought by an American, Capt. Metcalfe, in 1789. Thus, Chinese were working on the West Coast well before the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in 1804 for the first view of the Pacific Ocean by East Coast explorers.

Town of Tillamook Settled 1851

 Tillamook, located at the head of Tillamook Bay, was, during the frontier era, called The Landing, Lincoln, Tillamook Landing, later the name was changed to Tillamook meaning "land of many waters."
 Hoquarten, an Indian name meaning "the landing," was an early name for Tillamook, the first community to be settled in the county, situated on the east shore of Tillamook Bay. In 1927, Lucy E. Doughty, of Bay City wrote:

 I do not know the meaning of this name... It has been in use since the first settlers came, as Warren N. Vaughn used it in a memorial that he compiled. He always spelled the word "Hoquarton." Now the name is applied only to the slough and to a voting precinct in the city, but for a long time after we came here, Hoquarton Prairie was the name used for the neighborhood now known as Fairview. When a town was first laid out on the bank of this slough, it was named Lincoln, but as there was already a post office of that name in Polk County, the post office had to be Tillamook. The site had been called Hoquarton, the Landing, or Tillamook Landing. I think it was usually called Hoquarton by the settlers in the bay neighborhood and it was not until 1885 that I began to hear the town called Tillamook. Before that, when we said "Tillamook" we meant the county.

 Tillamook was the name of a large tribe of Salish whose habitat was near the south of Tillamook Head. In the journals of Lewis and Clark, this name is spelled Kilamox and Killamuck. Gass’ journal gives it Callemeux and Cal-a-mex; the journals of Henry and Thompson, by Eliot Coues, give it Callemex.
 Tillamook County was created by the territorial legislature December 15, 1853, and has an area of 1,105 square miles. The early spelling Killamook was changed to Tillamook about the time the county was created. In addition to the county, the name is used for the town, the bay, the river and the head.
 The first non-colored man of record to visit Tillamook head was William Clark, who spent the night of Jan. 7-8, 1806, near the top of the head, and in his journals comments on the fine view to be had, which gave the place the name of Clarks Point of View. Clark was on his way to what is now called Cannon Beach on a short exploring expedition to inspect a reported whale beaching. The wording in his diary has caused several authorities, notably Greenhow and Reuben G. Thwaites, to confuse Tillamook Head with other features south along the coast. Tillamook Head triangulation station, on the highest point, has an elevation of 1,136 feet.
  The first squatter in the region was Joseph Champion, who came in 1851 and made his home in a hollow spruce tree he called the "castle." Within months other squatters came, all bachelors. In 1852, the first two families arrived to make their homes. Each successive year brought more families, and on December 15, 1853, Tillamook County was created by an act of the legislature. The new county was made up of parts of Yamhill and Clatsop counties.
 1854 was an eventful year for the pioneers. The first election was held, the first census taken, the first school started and the keel laid for the Morning Star, which was built out of economic necessity because shipwrecks had destroyed all transportation which had carried the dairy products, fish and potatoes to market. The vessel was built by the combined efforts and ingenuity of the squatters. Most of the materials came from the forest but iron work from a wrecked ship was laboriously packed near Netarts. Pitch was used to caulk the craft but paint was not available. Nevertheless, this pioneer ship was launched in Kilchris River on January 5, 1855, and for some years made possible the existence of the pioneers and development of Tillamook County.
 In 1861, Thomas Stillwell, aged 70, arrived with his family from Yamhill and purchased land. The following year he laid out the town of Tillamook and opened the first store. Tillamook post office was established March 12, 1866, with George W. Miller first postmaster. The first public building was the jail built in 1873; the courthouse and City Hall in the early 1890s. As more and more squatters came to the area, claims were taken north and south of Tillamook, where in the late 1800s and early 1900s other communities were established. The county’s early occupations were shipping, lumbering, fishing and dairying.
 In the early days of Tillamook County the only source of cash was the sale of fish caught in the many bays and rivers. Numerous canneries sprang up from Uppertown in the north and Cretown in the south. Peddlers bought the fish and made the trek to the Willamette Valley to sell for cash or trade for produce; return to the county with their profits and repeat the whole process again. The cash received from the fishing industry helped develop other businesses and enabled the squatters to build a stable economy.
  Lumbering was not thought of as an industry in the early days of Tillamook County. The squatters looked at the forest and saw only a stumbling block to the development of their farms and dairies. Some of the great trees were falled and burned or hauled to the low tidelands and left for the tides to carry them to sea. The first use of lumber for manufacturing was a cooper shop which made containers for butter, fish, and other products of the settlers. The first mills were built at Idaville and on Killam Creek. Logging and milling operations were slow in starting but in 1890 the rapid development of the lumber industry began and has been of the main supports of the county's economy.
 The western terminus of Wilson River Highway, and the seat of Tillamook County, Tillamook is a prosperous trade center of the dairying industry in Oregon. The rich grasslands and mild climate were ideal for dairy herds. The pioneers produced the finest butter in the country and had a ready market in Portland. However, the transportation was so uncertain it became necessary to find a dairy product which could be stored long periods of time without losing its quality.
 It was old Peter McIntosh, a Canadian, who introduced the fine art of cheesemaking to Tillamook County in 1894, and Tillamook has been famous ever since for its American cheddar. In his delightful 1933 book, The Cheddar Box, Dean Collins writes:

If you follow the trail of the history of cheese in the Pacific Northwest, outside the confines of Tillamook County into Southern Oregon, you'll still find Peter McIntosh... And if you'll sit in on a meeting of Alaska sourdoughs talking about the Klondike, you'll hear about McIntosh cheese, which was as yellow as the gold of Alaska,and at times commanded almost ounce for ounce in the mining camps.

The dairymen banded together and built small cheese factories around the county.
 Early in the morning, the pioneer dairy ranchers began to arrive at the factory weighing-in platforms, where an attendant checked the quantity of milk and took samples for the butter-fat test that determines the rate of payment. After the ranchers had delivered their milk, they loaded empty cans with whey, valuable as hod feed. By 8am, after all the milk had been received, the cheese makers emptied the fresh milk into huge stainless steel vats and added rennet—or rennin—which is an enzyme that coagulates milk and is used in making cheese and junkets, salt, and coloring matter to it before turning steam into the jackets around the vats. As soon as the coagulation started, long rakes of wire began a steady movement through the curd to cut and break it. When the curd had been completely separated from the liquid, it was pressed into molds of various shapes that had been lined with cheesecloth. Finally, the containers of the new cheeses were stamped with the trade mark and coated with paraffin. The round disks were placed in long rows in curing rooms where cool air of constant temperature was circulated.
 Through the years, the name Tillamook cheese has become world famous because of the high standards of quality set by those early pioneers. The years of gradual growth brought the telegraph in 1893, the first automobile in 1904 and a library in 1901. With the coming of the railroad in 1911, the first paved streets were laid. By 1925 Tillamook County had entered the modern commercial age, a county of the present and the future.
  The Tillamook air base for blimps was put in commission December 1, 1942, with the name US Naval Air Station. It was closed after WWII, but the immerse wood framed hangars are prominent landmarks.
 In July 1906, Mable Noyes Folks came to Oregon with her family from Kansas. Some of the noticeable changes were the forest-clad hills, the green fields, and the little trickles of water running along the sides of the roadways kept some dairy cows, so her father soon rented a dairy farm on the hill above Nestucca Bay. From the house the family could see across the bay to all the expanse of the ocean. There was a salmon cannery on the bay and a wharf where the seagoing Della came with supplies and took out cheese.
 In February 1907, Folks began teaching her first school session—a three months spring term at Otis. The trip to Otis was an outstanding event. Her father, with a team and light hack, started out, never anticipating the changes that would take place. Some distance up Slab Creek the two of them stopped to ask directions. A man named Taggert invited them in for dinner. Folks remembered,

 It was a delicious meal with roast bear meat—our first experience of eating wild game.

 Taggert told them the road ahead was impossible for a team and rig, and advised them to go over the trail on horseback. He told them where they would find a foot log where her father could cross the creek, for he had decided to walk over and ride Folks' horse back. She was to go a little further, through a gate, then ford the creek to the foot of the trail. She was also advised to dismount after fording the creek. The trail had worn down in steps knee-high where it rose abruptly to more level ground. A horse would have difficulty getting up those steps with me on its back. Folks recalled,

 I was to start the horse up the trail, get behind it, and hold on to its tail. As the horse progressed up the steps, it would easily help me make the steps by pulling me with its tail!

 The trail was plain and led through dense forests; in places, one could see the sky above. Then it wound over fern ridges to the home of James West, which was to be Mable's Boarding Place. West was the Otis postmaster, as the post office was in their home. Mail was received three times a week from Grande Ronde, and twice a week from Taft. There was always someone coming and going as that was the only place to receive mail. Folks recalled that the West home

was a typical pioneer frontier cabin, made entirely of split shakes and small poles. There was a loft above where the two West girls and I had rooms. The bunks there were well back under the cracks in the roof shakes, but never a drop of rain came through.

 The schoolhouse was a more modern room, built of lumber, near the West home. Folks had six pupils—one first grader, one sixth grader, and the others were in between. She related that she was

as much the pupil and the children the teacher as I was the teacher and they the pupils. I was so new to those surroundings. They taught me to identify the different forest trees, the names of shrubs, and underbrush—salmonberry, elderberry, salal, and huckleberry—the names of all the wild flowers, and the wild animals and their ways of living. We had plenty of wild game to eat—mostly deer—and an occasional rabbit or bear.

 Folks spent many pleasant evenings with music. West was a fine violinist and I accompanied him on their nice parlor organ.
 The fall of 1907, Folks was a teacher at the Oretown School, where I had 26 pupils, and all grades. One student was her own sister, Eula, who was in the 8th grade. The teacher's duties, recalled Folks,

also included cleaning the boards after school was dismissed, sweeping the room, and getting wood for the fire in the morning. The day began with dusting desks, making the fire, and having a pail of drinking water on hand.

 Folks was staying home and helping out with the milking on weekends, throughout the term. For a few weeks in the autumn, her father took a neighbor's herd to milk while they went to the valley to pick hops. During that period of time, she recalled that

 I milked 12 cows in the morning, walked one and a half miles to school, was teacher throughout the day, and was home in time to milk 17 cows. At that time, I had never heard of a milking machine.

 Mable Noyes Folks said she always liked country schools because

There one was able to know the parents and was often a guest in their homes, and knew the background of the pupils. In a town with second and third grades and 20 pupils, I would have 20 families represented. The upper grades were a challenge. The teacher had to see that the 8th graders were prepared for their 8th grade examination and passed in good standing.

Bayocean

Bayocean was founded by a realtor from Kanas City named T.B. Potter who claimed it would be the "Queen  of Oregon Resorts". It had a hotel, grocery, bowling alley  and the largest indoor saltwater swimming pool on the west coast.  Hundreds of lots were sold. One night it was reported that by Mr. Potter's wife that he had gone violently insane and he was never seen again. In 1917 the ocean currents changed and street  after street began to disapear into the sea. By 1952 the city completly vanished into the sea.

Ghost Town of Bayocean 1938 and 1947
Photo Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

This is one of the remaining resorts at Bayocean in Tillamook County as seen on September 16, 1947. On the peninsula that extends northward from the southern lip of Tillamook Bay, beginning in 1907 the T.B. Potter Co. developed the resort town of Bayocean, fronting the Pacific. In 1928 a road finally was opened. But disintegration of resort developments had already begun, with winter storms pounding against the peninsula's seaward side. Gradually, as the land was eaten away, only residents clung to their houses until these were endangered or began to crumble. By 1948 Bayocean, queen of the Oregon resorts, had taken a ghostly departure.

Cape Meares Lighthouse

 One hundred years after then-president George Washington (1732-1799) signed a bill for the US government to take over the expenses for the operation and maintenance of US lighthouses, Cape Meares was selected as the site for a navigational beacon, guiding a growing fleet of ships along the often foggy and dangerous Pacific Coast.
 Commissioned in 1890, the Cape Meares Lighthouse served this purpose until 1963, when it was replaced with an automated beacon which still functions and is clearly visible 24 hours a day.
 Cape Meares Lighthouse, named for John Meares, is located in the Cape Meares State Park north of Oceanside, and ten miles west of Tillamook and US-101. The lighthouse stands 217 feet above the Pacific Ocean, but its 38-foot tower is the shortest of any on the Oregon Coast.
 When the lighthouse was decommissioned, concerned citizens rallied to save the old lighthouse. The old, weather-worn lighthouse is now a remarkable reminder of the vital role it once played.
 Perched on top of a 200-foot cliff, the building, with its wrought iron spiral staircase leads up to the prismatic Fresnel lenses. The automated halogen light now operates 24 hours a day. The lighthouse is open much of the summer by volunteers. On display inside is a collection of historic artifacts from the lighthouse's early years, including several photographs of early lighthouse keepers and architecture plans.
 Cape Meares National Refuge, located within the park, is home to a wide variety of interesting animals and plants, including the mysterious Octopus Tree, a giant Sitka spruce, ten feet in diameter at its base. It is said to be an Indian burial tree and is featured in Ripley's Believe It Or Not. The Octopus Tree is located some 200 yards through the woods east of the parking lot.
 Seals and sea lions can be spotted from the lighthouse while they lounge on Three Arch Rocks, once known as Three Brothers. As many as 200,000 puffins and other birds can be seen nesting on the face of these huge rocks that are visible from the cape during the spring and summer. When whales are migrating in the fall and spring, Cape Meares provides an excellent viewpoint.
 State Highway 6 carves its way west through Tillamook State Forest. The lush forest canopy reveals little about the fires that devastated the area so many years before. Healthy stands of timber defy the name bestowed upon the forest following the famous conflagration: the Tillamook Burn.
 Retaining walls and recently repaved sections of the old road announce the location of severe landslides that all but cut off Tillamook County from the east several months during the great floods of 1996. Today, Wilson River is relatively tame, as it rushes toward Tillamook Bay and the Pacific Ocean, the road closely following its course.
 Tillamook State Forest offers many opportunities, luring motorists off the beaten path. Hiking, Biking, ATV trails, old spur roads, and camping areas abound, inviting visitors to explore her abundance of flora and fauna.
 As the two-lane highway straightens, forest land gives way to fertile pasture land.
 Green fields, dotted with grazing cows, stretch out before you. In fact, at one time, cows outnumbered people in Tillamook County.
 Today, there are around 140 operating dairy farms within Tillamook County, providing fresh milk for the production of world famous Tillamook Cheese.
 Tillamook’s history and culture is deeply rooted in agriculture and timber, and to a lesser extent than in past years, both industries still contribute to the county’s economy. Today, other business and industries take up where dairy and timber leave off.
 Tourism plays an important role in Tillamook County's economy, and businesses and organizations have sprung up to accommodate the visitors. Luckily, however, the county has avoided many of the downfalls sometimes associated with a location when it is designated "a tourist destination.”
 Unlike Lincoln City, Seaside and other coastal destinations, there are no high rise hotels lining the beaches and obstructing views. Quaint motels, cabins and bed and breakfasts located throughout the county provide visitors with the services and convenience they expect without unnecessarily scarring the landscape.
 Las Vegas-style casinos are nowhere to be found within Tillamook County. Those wishing to play games of chance can quench their desire by frequenting any one of the taverns and lounges offering video poker, keno and blackjack dealers. Or, stop in at one of the countless bingo games, where, not only might you win a few bucks, but you’ll also be helping to support non-profit agencies and organizations within the community.
 There is something for everyone within Tillamook County. With the veritable plethora of attractions and activities, its the ideal destination for people of all interests.
 However, arguable the best attraction offered by the county is nature itself.
 Ancient, old growth stands of Sitka spruce. Clean, clear rivers, streams and lakes stocked with salmon and trout. Bald eagles hunting in a pristine estuary. Herds of elk and deer meandering through a meadow. Unpolluted bays teaming with oysters, clams and crabs. Whales spouting and breaching easily within view from miles of state protected beaches. Breathtaking sunsets and landscapes welcoming a camera or canvas. Tillamook County offers this and much more.

Devil's Punch Bowl 1909
Photo Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

Munson Creek Falls

 While there are numerous waterfalls throughout Tillamook County, most of the accessible ones are small. The exception is Munson Creek Falls, located about seven miles south of Tillamook.
 Munson Creek Falls ranks as the highest waterfall in the Coast Range, dropping 266 feet over spectacular rugged cliffs.
 A sign off US-101 directs motorists to a one and a half to two mile roadway leading to a parking area and trails. The lower trail is a short, easy walk to the base of the falls with a picnic area nearby.
 Following the canyon floor and Munson Creek, the lower trail takes hikers on an easy, one-quarter mile jaunt to a picnic area near the base of the falls.
 The upper trail provides some excellent views of moss-covered, old-growth timber and Munson Creek Canyon. The trail ends at a viewing platform located 300 feet from the falls, offering a mid-point view of the falls.
 While spring, summer and fall provide the most colorful backdrops, the winter views are truly remarkable. Massive runoffs, and freezing temperatures transform the forests and falls into a crystal paradise.
 Munson Creek and Munson Creek Falls about six miles south of Tillamook were both named for Goran Munson who came from Michigan and settled along the creek in 1889.

The Great Tillamook Burn 1933

 At high noon on August 14, 1933, a perspiring runner was sent into the woods with orders to close down the last operation in the Gales Canyon. The trail was rough, the going slow and torturous. A suffocating east wind sucked the last remaining moisture from the fir needles. The humidity read 20 percent. The forest was dust dry. The moss and sword fern hung lifelessly.
 At the spur tree, the crew sensed danger and were preparing to shut down. "One more log," the super said. One more log, the rasp of steel cable against a dray stump, the crunch of wood against wood, a trickle of smoke and a fire that 3,000 couldn't put out. This is how it all started.
 Suddenly, the fire call rang through the woods. The entire crew seized tools and rushed to the scene. Frantically they tried to control the flames but a freakish wind caught up and burning bands and carried them into the adjoining slash. The fire spread with explosive force. A dense smoke column billowed, the Saddle Mountain Lookout, to the south, sent their urgent calls to the forestry headquarters at Forest Grove.
 In the next 11 days developed the largest and most destructive fire that has occurred in Oregon since the Coos Bay Conflagration in 1868. Growing through the finest stand of virgin timber remaining in the state, it laid waste over 270,000 acres of forest land in spite of the determined efforts of nearly 3,000 men to control it.
 Meanwhile, all available men from adjoining mills and logging camps pushed to the scene of the fire Grimly they fought to trench and hold it. Hazel hoe, axe and dynamite were used to no avail. To the tops of snags 150-200 feet high licked the flames, burning like enormous lighted candles. Flaming bark sailed into the air and was carried far into the adjoining timber.
 With the help of loggers, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crewmen, and volunteers from towns and cities in the district, the area burned during the first ten days had been held at 40,000 acres.
 Then came the day foresters will remember in Oregon forever, when everything was bone dry, humidity was low, and danger lurked in every valley near the fire. Then, within the space of 20 hours on August 24 and 25, the fire blew up, in the parlance of the loggers, and 270,000 acres were consumed. Trees 400 years old—great giants—were sucked into the roaring cauldron created by the inferno of heat, and as the fire roared on, it sounded like the pounding of a dozen surfs. Down along the Pacific Ocean, chickens went to roost, influenced by the darkness caused by the smoke, and ashes fell on ships 500 miles at sea, and to a depth of two feet along the Oregon beaches for 30 miles distance from the fire.
 More than 3,000 men worked to control the fire, all under the direction of the tired state forester, who hardly slept for ten days. Only one man lost his life, a CCC enrollee from Illinois named Frank Palmer.
 The Tillamook Burn, which includes the Wolf Creek Burn just to the north—which burned at the same time—and the Salmonberry Burn—which was destroyed in the late autumn of the year before—covers 311,000 aces of land.
 More than 12 billion board feet of green timber was destroyed. Total values of the timber at prewar prices was estimated at $20 million and about $100 million in 1977. Payrolls lost to the state from this timber destruction are set at $200 million and the forests burned would have supplied raw products by Clark & Wilson that they were forced to cease operations due to timber reduction, had the real effect of this forest fire come home to Portland and Northwest Oregon citizens.
 Smoke reached to a height of 40,000 feet during the peak of the 11 days, and a dense pall hung over the coastal area of Western Oregon for miles north and south of the burn area. More than 400 square miles of Oregon’s finest timber, some of it four centuries old, went up in this man-caused conflagration, which could have been avoided. It was one of the greatest economic losses Oregon has ever suffered. Now, by the medium of Keep Oregon Green, the public is largely curbing man-caused fires, reducing each year the area burned needlessly and carelessly to a very satisfactory size.
 Eleven days later, the fire left the state of Oregon $100 million poorer and hundreds of years of growing time lost forever.
 Since 1933, all foresters have dreamed and planned for the day when the burn could be reforested. Many obstacles stood in the path. First, the salvageable timber must be logged. Taxes much be paid. Snags must be cut. Roads for logging and fire protection must be constructed. Bare land seeded or planted. The task seemed too gigantic.
 The vicious six-year jinx—1933, 1939, 1945. Could it be broken? Only time would tell for sure. But the people of Oregon weren’t going to resign themselves to the inevitable.
 Even before the third fire was controlled, machinery was set in motion to put an end to these periodic holocausts and, at the same time, to discover means of rehabilitating this monstrous eyesore whose reputation had spread over the nation.
 The late gov. Earl Snell (1935-1943) appointed a ten-man committee. Its function was to explore methods, policies, law and action affecting the state forestry program. Committee members represented lumbering, agricultural and labor interests.
 Nearly a year later, after holding numerous public hearings throughout the state, the committee brought out a comprehensive report. The prime target was one of rehabilitating the Tillamook Burn.
 The 1949 state legislature passed an enabling act which set up administrative authority. Charged with carrying out the program was the State Forestry Department.
 July 18, 1949 was an historic date in Oregon. That was the day when the late Gov. Douglas McKay (1949-1952) from atop a giant Douglas fir stump at Owl Camp, officially launched the rehabilitation program which would be paid for by the people of Oregon.
 The program was underway. Treatment had been prescribed in the healing of an ugly wound. Preliminary surveys had already established the need for reforestation on some 220,000 acres of the 250,000 acre total since acquired by the state. The remaining 30,000 acres represented those with natural regeneration or contained unburned islands of timber, capable of reseeding in close proximity.
 To say the least, this rehabilitation program was one of the largest of its type ever undertaken by man. This was a large-scale affair if there ever was one. Some facts were known about seeding and planting. At the same time there were many unknowns.
 One thing was clear. Foresters given this task had to think big because of the immensity of the undertaking. The unfortunate recurrence of fire on the same lands, had completely removed all vestige of natural production on most of the area. New techniques, and new thinking came into play in terms of quantity—thousands of acres, tons of seeds, millions of seedlings, with manpower and equipment to match. From analysis of the area, nursery production, manpower, transportation and organization, it was evident that only part of the vast area could be hand planted efficiently. Planting had to be done during the winter rainy season with the attendant risk of delays from snow. At the calculated rate the job might consume 24 to 30 years. Tillamook County and the state could ill-afford to wait that long.
 There was a possible short-cut. Why not attempt aerial seeding? Trial seedings by the department dating back to 1945 looked promising.
 So the decision was made to use a combination of the two methods—seeding and planting—applying which ever one was best adapted to specific areas.
 To Oregon went the distinction of the first large-scale use of the helicopter in forest seeding. During the autumn of 1949, the first major seeding was performed.
 Snags posed a serious threat to the burn. Historically, snags had been the reason for the fire control failures in 1939 and 1945. What was the sense of planting seeds, if the seedlings could not be protected against the ravages of fire?
 Out of this thinking and well in advance of the actual program, emerged the decision to take care of the snag problem. Sales were taking care of some merchantable snags. Future sales would account for still more. But this would lack the swiftness and organization necessary. Hence the snag-free corridor system was programmed. In some cases, it was recognized that these would need to be at least a half mile in width to serve the purpose intended—to act as holding points on tops of ridges in the event of fire.
 The program was moved along. Since the beginning of the full-scale effort inaugurated during the first autumn, impressive accomplishments have been marked up. As of the end of 1961, 80,000 acres have been aerially seeded, using 27 tons of seed in the process. That's more than 2 billion seeds for the benefit of the statistical minded! Along with that, 46,000 acres have been planted and 7,800 acres replanted, with 42 million seedlings used.
 Roads are highly essential for access to timber sales, reforestation and fire. Some 154 miles have been constructed. Snag-free corridors totaling 199 miles are there, giving comfort to fire protection forces. Three new lookouts situated strategically for fire detection purposes insure quick location of fire.
 Brush and animal damage to small seedlings have been vexing problems. Encroachment of brush species, especially on the Western Oregon coastal side of the burn has become more severe with each passing year. As a consequence, aerial brush spraying with herbicides has been used and shows promise. When topography permits, scarification (cutting) with bulldozers has been deemed successful.
 Animal damage to seedlings by deer, rabbits and mountain beaver, has become severe. Buildups in both deer and rodent populations beyond the normal food supply is at least partly responsible for the damage to young growth. Research in game management with regard to seedling establishment is presently going ahead on a special 330-acre fenced area within the burn. This is a cooperative project being carried on by the Forestry Department and the game commission to determine the point of compatibility between animal land plant life. The study is providing a basis for decision on controlled hunts elsewhere in the burn, so that fame and trees may live in harmony.
 The rehabilitation program thus far has cost slightly more than $8 million. But the general feeling among Oregonians is that it's something like placing money in a savings bank. Right now the money is collecting interest in the form of young growing stock. One of these days, its going to start yielding returns to the investors—the people of Oregon.

Tillamook Naval Air Station Museum

 Originally, two hangers were built to house Navy airships during WWII. Hanger "A" was completely lost on August 22, 1992, when a fire decimated The structure. Hanger "B," which today house the Tillamook Naval Air Station Museum, is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest wooden clear-span structure on the planet. The building is 192 feet high, 300 feet wide and 1,072 feet in length.
 During WWII, the air base was home to eight K-series airships. The buildings’ post-war incarnations included a sawmill and plywood veneer plant. On that fateful night in August 1992, the buildings contained tons of straw which were stored awaiting shipping to Japan.
 The Port of Tillamook Bay opened the Blimp Hanger Museum in 1992 to allow visitors the opportunity to view the interior of the one-of-a-kind structure. The name was soon changed to the Tillamook Naval Air Station Museum.
 The Tillamook Naval Air Station Museum is open daily and hosts an impressive collection of warbirds and vintage aircraft, most of which are fully restored and fully operational. In fact, on a clear day in the summer in Tillamook County, it is not uncommon to hear the distinct drone and upon looking skyward, be treated with the sight of a meticulous Mitchell B-26 bomber soaring through the clouds.
 The buildings and planes within are no strangers to Silver Hanrahan, a volunteer at the museum. Hanrahan worked at the two lumber companies who occupied the space prior to it being turned into a museum. It would seem that through all of the changes the venerable blimp hanger has experienced over the years, the one constant has been Silver Hanrahan.
 The museum contains many examples of aviation history including a F4U Corsair, a P-51 Mustang, a PBY Catalina, Me-109 Messerschmidt, FM-2 Wildcat, MK-VIII Spitfire, the B-25 and an impeccable SBD Dauntless.

Cape Meares Lake

 After WWII, the ocean cut through the Bayocean peninsula which formed the west side of Tillamook Bay. The breakthrough was at Biggs Cove just north of the high ground forming Cape Meares and the narrowest spot on the peninsula. The second ocean entry posted entry posed serious problems for Tillamook Bay and the USCE constructed a substantial dike from Pitcher Point northwest to the southern extremity of what was then Bayocean Island. The dike altered the current and sand reestablished the old shoreline, changing what had been Biggs Cove into a lake. Nearby residents, capitalizing on this natural accretion, renamed the impoundment Cape Meares Lake. Biggs Cove was named for John A. Biggs who came to Tillamook County about 1885. He was a son-in-law of Webley Hauxhurst, a companion of Ewing Young in 1835.

Neskowin

 Slab Creek, now known as Neskowin, has a wide view of the Pacific Ocean and an excellent beach. Numerous varieties of fish, including cutthroat and steelhead trout, Chinook and silverside salmon, bass, halibut, flounders, and perch inhabit the waters. Between the Neskowin drainage basin and that of Salmon River, evergreens grow so thickly along the highway, that there is scarcely any undergrowth except huckleberry.
 Sage old-timers and eager young students gathered round the huge stone fireplace in the great room of Neskowin Valley School last week to reminisce and share stories of Slab Creek Road.
 A winding two-lane path that follows Neskowin Creek into the rain forest of the Coast Range, Slab Creek Road used to be the main road to the beach from the valley. Today, the road is dotted with old dairy barns and soggy pastureland classic farm houses and a few newer dwellings, lush greenery and abundant wildlife.
 They are views forged forever into the memories of residents and the minds of students, parents and teachers as they make their daily two-mile trek to Neskowin Valley School from US-101.
 The bond between the school and the road made it the perfect choice for this year’s all-school study, which involves a variety of activities and participation from every student.
 The project kicked off in the fall with a macro-invertebrate study of Neskowin Creek and research into the history of the road, and culminated last week with oral interviews of community members who grew up or lived on Slab Creek Road.
 Neskowin Valley School development director Kaline Klaas said students prepared for the interviews by practicing questions and not-taking strategies, and holding mock interviews with teachers and peers.
 "Some of the older students are veterans of an oral history project from last year when they interviewed ten senior volunteers from the Kiwanda Center in Pacific City," noted Klaas. "The results were published in a booklet, which was distributed to libraries, chambers of commerce and schools."
 Sharing their Slab Creek stories were Klaas, Randall Koch, Laine Koch, Voni Deddekopp, Gale Ousele, Sally Rissel, Jeanette Carver, Jack Sutton, Joe Goodrich, Karen Goodrich, Melissa Madenski, Gene Carver, Marvin Greenbaum and Jane Greenbaum.
 Jack Sutton, 71, told Justin Stovall, Ian Dawson, Vince Geagle and David Walker that he came to Slab Creek Road with his parents in 1937. He recalled how he milked the family cows before and after school, and often went to bed exhausted. He also said there once were so many salmon in the creek that the water was completely black, and his family depended on the fish for survival.
 "This was during the Depression, therefore we did not have much money," said Sutton. “"f my mother told us to get a salmon, we went out and caught a salmon. The way we were catching them was illegal. We speared them, but spearing got us food, so we did it."
 Sutton returned to Slab Creek Road after living in Southern California for 20 years. "I reside in this area for its beauty and seclusion. The elk come right into my yard," he told the students.
 Sutton added, "I like the creek even in winter, the creek used to overflow. It became very high, although it never reached the road."
 Matthew Salmons, Lars Helgerson, Jana Rogers and Houston Woods interviewed 70-year-old Jeanette Carver. She told them the name "Neskowin" means "plenty fish," and the name Slab Creek Road came from the slabs of wood that floated down the creek.
 "I was 15 when I first moved here," said Salmons. "I am now a homemaker. The area hasn't changed much since I first moved here, except there were many dairy farms.
 "My family moved here, to the West Coast, because it's very peaceful and beautiful and I love the out-of-doors," Carver added.
 Klaas said the students will compile the interviews into a written history, which will be published in a newsletter for distribution of students and guests. Cassette tapes of the interviews will be donated to the Pioneer Museum in Tillamook and Pioneer Museum in Tillamook and archived with other audiotaped oral histories.

Nestucca Bay

 By 2,500 years ago, the Nehalem, Tillamook, Nestucca, and Salmon Rivers of the Oregon Coast, some of whom eventually moved to the Grand Ronde Reservation, were settled just south of the mouth of the Columbia with a fully-developed Northwest Coast fishing culture. The prehistory of the peoples of the mountain valley southward from the Willamette Valley is not well known, but the culture of the earliest occupants seems similar to the Great Basin cultures across the mountains in Southeastern Oregon and Nevada. The ancestors of the Umpqua and Rogue River people moved from Northern Canada and Alaska south to Southwestern Oregon and Northwestern California. Shasta-speaking people from Rogue River were among the first Indians settled on the Grand Ronde Reservation.
 Whether descendants of people who have probably lived in the Willamette Valley for over 8,000 years, or of others who may have arrived only about 1,000 years ago, all ancestors of the present day Grand Ronde people were established in Western Oregon well before the arrival of the first non-indian visitors and explorers.
 European explorers and traders were visiting the Northwest by the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. However, apart from the Coastal people and those on the Lower Columbia, none of the ancestors of the Grand Ronde people had direct contact in their own territories with these early visitors.
 Fur traders were followed by missionaries and others. The Donation Land Act was passed in 1850, offering free land to settlers who would open up farms in Oregon. By the mid-1850s, large numbers of non-indians had entered the valley and taken claim to much of the prime land. Pressure to remove the Indians from their ancestral lands increased. By 1855, lawless frontier elements were advocating extermination of the Indians, and land cession treaties were hurriedly concluded to clear the legal impediment to white settlement.

Pacific City

  Pacific City, a fishing village without wharves, docks or piers, is a small unincorporated community of approximately 1,200 residents located along Nestucca River and the Pacific Ocean. The area is well known for its salmon and steelhead fishing and for the famous fishing dories that launch directly from the beach at Cape Kiwanda (45° 13' 03").
 Cape Kiwanda was once known as Sand Cape, but Kiwanda is the name in general use and the one adopted by the USBGN. Cape Kiwanda is a low, yellow, rocky point, much broken and eroded, projecting about one half mile from the general of the coast. Behind the cape are bright sand dunes, and it is probable that these rather than sand on the cape itself suggested the name of Cape Sand. There is some uncertainty about the origin of the name of Kiwanda, and it is said to mean "wind mountain." However, John W. Meldrum of Oregon City, former surveyor general of Oregon, said that Kiwanda was the name of a Nestucca Chief and local celebrity. This origin of the name seems much more probable, as the name Wild Mountain is not applicable to the cape.
 The jutting sandstone of Cape Kiwanda provided a protected lee and the smooth, sandy beaches were a perfect launch site for the double-edged boats developed by dory pioneers of South Tillamook County.
 But the horse-and-wagon method of transporting the heavy boats to the cape limited the number of fishermen. The major method of motivation was rowing, also a factor in limiting fishermen.
 In the late 1950s, the addition of a road from Pacific City to the cape provided easy access to the launch site.
 The dory itself was also getting a face lift. The square stern dory was becoming more and more popular to accommodate bigger and faster engines.
 Originally the dory was a flat-bottomed fishing boat that was rowed through the surf as it launched into the ocean. Loaded with the catch of the day, it heads, full-throttle, into the beach to a sand-slide stop. The evolution of the craft led to wells being added to boats which allowed small motors to be dropped in once the surf was cleared, and eventually to single-bowed craft with inboard or outboard motors, which powered them quickly through the waves.
 Pacific City's Dory Days celebrates the heritage of the dory and recognizes the important part this craft played in the history of Pacific City.
 Dories continue to play a role in modern Pacific City. Depending on the official fishing seasons, the open-topped, double-ended boats may be seen trolling for silver or Chinook salmon or working the underwater reefs around Haystack Rock or bottom fishing on almost any calm day from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Chapter 19: Central Oregon Coast

 Three Rocks, home of mystery writer, M.K. Wren, is located on the north side of Salmon River at its mouth. Indians in the region told the first non-indian settlers the story of a sailing ship wrecked here long ago, of strange men and buried treasure. When some years later bits of unknown wreckage were found in a shell mound, along with two nonaboriginal skeletons, one of an 8-foot tall African, it appeared there was something more to the story than legend.
 In the 1920, County Commissioner Elmer G. Calkins (1887-1976) purchased 160 acres on the north bank of the Salmon River Estuary from his parents, Olive and William Calkins, with an idea to create a tourist settlement, the Three Rox Resort.
 When Calkins announced in August 1936 he was bringing in fleet of 14 streetcars to serve as cottages, many people thought he was joking.
 He acquired the cars from the City of Portland. Some, if not all, were first put into use at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition. Portland was switching over to buses and found itself with 200 surplus streetcars to sell.
 Despite the bargain-basement price of $50 each, there were few takers, and most of the obsolete cars were burned.
 Calkins saw potential in the streetcars that everyone else had overlooked. He envisioned them as cute little tourist cottages at his resort. Calkins hired Fred Horning (1880-1969), of Toledo, to haul the 33-foot-long cars from Portland with his log trucks. He was to deliver them to Three Rocks, where they would be completely remodeled.
 Calkins' streetcar cottage idea proved to be less than practical. The cars were expensive to transport from Portland and difficult to move into position once they were actually used as cottages, most of the streetcars, according to a 1940 article in the Oregon Journal, sat abandoned on a bluff over the ocean, "just as the trucker set them down," lined up to form a "decrepit train on the road to nowhere."
 Evidently the streetcars were later burned. Some believed the remaining metal parts where thrown into the bay at the mouth of the Salmon River.
 The streetcar story resurfaced in 1973 when Calkins' 60-year-old son Edward discovered what he believed to be the remains of the 17th Century sailing vessel spoken of in the provocative Indian legend of Three Rocks. Some locals were certain what he actually found were the remains of the old streetcars, and the state turned thumbs down on Calkins' appeal to recover the wreckage.
 According to the legend Indians claimed was handed down to them from their ancestry, a sailing ship, they’d graphically described as "a monstrous canoe with wings" had been blown into the mouth of the Salmon River and wrecked. The Indians told of three men, one a giant African, who along with two non-african companions, had been left to guard something of value within the wreckage, while 20 others aboard the vessel, left the area on foot, never to be heard from again.
 It is said that the three men had lived among the Indians for some time, the African had been worshipped by the Indians as a god.
 But as the story goes, the Indians later killed all three men, for some reason, the African giant's mortality was exposed.
 When the state denied Calkins approval for a treasure trove permit, the reason given was, "insufficient evidence of shipwreck in or near the Salmon River area."
 Calkins has several reasons for believing the legendary sailing ship lies within the confines of the Salmon River Estuary, and he'd depended upon a 1931 Oregon Journal photo taken at Three Rocks to convince the state to reverse the decision that has denied him access to it.
 The photo accompanied a story written by a Journal reporter on the scene shortly after Calkins' father, William, a longtime resident of that area, had unearthed three human skeletons from an ancient Indian shell mound being leveled for a tourist campsite.
 At the time, the find had sparked renewed interest in the legend of the shipwreck and of the African giant and his two companions, when it appeared that one of the individuals had, in his lifetime, attained an approximate height of eight feet.
 The remains had also displayed mute evidence that all three had shared a violent death. One of the leg bones was shattered, a two inch bone spearhead was found lodged at the base of one skull, and a large stone was embedded in the crushed skull of another.
 In addition to the hoards of treasure seekers and newsmen to arrive at the site that week, the find had drawn the attention of Prof. John B. Horner, an historian at the Oregon State College, Corvallis.
 Prof. Horner was also a devotee of Indian Lore and an avid collector of artifacts, and so he'd gathered up all the contents of the shell mound, except the seashells, and had taken them back to Corvallis for a museum, then in the planning stages.
 Some newspaper accounts of that time indicated that Horner had placed the age of the skeletal remains at from 260 to 300 years. It is believed now, this dating was a guess derived from atop the mound prior to the leveling. On the scene witnesses have declared the trees were, "as big around as table tops."
 In 1973, when Calkins began collecting evidence to prove the validity of his claim to the legendary discovery, he found that neither the artifacts, nor any record of the find could be located at the museum—that somewhere along the way, since 1931, the contents of the shell mound "disappeared," along with a 3,000 word essay Horner had written on the find.
 The missing essay is said to have included mention of some artifacts other than human remains found in the shell mound. They were: a broken iron receptacle, believed to be a tea kettle, an object described as a whale bone war club, and a smooth, round rock, which Prof. Horner had determined was a "crude stone pestle."
 In January 1999, Katrina Poole, North Lincoln Historical Museum Curator, presented a talk on Salmon River settlements for the Oregon Legacy Series at Driftwood Public Library in Lincoln City. She also alluded to the mysterious disappearance of the seamen's bones:

 Calkins created a major sensation in the press when he claimed to have found the remains of the wreck. But the bones disappeared after they were supposedly taken to Oregon State University for examination, and Calkins' story was never verified.

 Calkins contends, if the alleged existence of the old growth spruce trees supports Horner's assumed burial date, it is highly unlikely that a broken iron tea kettle would have been brought in by those from another land.
 The object Horner had accounted for as a whale bone war club has been viewed by some as resembling a belaying pin used in sailing vessels of that era. Also, the smooth round rock is similar to the special type of rock used as ballast in those old vessels.
 Armed only with his father's personal testimony at the final hearing, Calkins lost his appeal for the permit when the state determined that hearsay and folklore was not enough reason to justify the adverse impact the excavation project would have on the estuary.
 Recent legislation enacted in 1975 proclaimed the 9,670 acres of land surrounding Cascade Head (45° 03' 41") to a federally protected scenic and scientific research area. This includes the Salmon River Estuary, which is now valued as the "smallest and most pristine estuary on the Oregon Coast."
 Although members of the State Land Board were impressed with Calkins' story, they based their decision largely upon testimony given by Linfield College professor, Stephen Dow Beckham, a noted historian and authority on Coastal Indians, past and present.
 Dr. Beckham testified that in all his extensive research into Oregon Coast shipping disasters of the last few centuries, he'd not found any documented evidence that a ship had ever wrecked in or near the Salmon River.
 Beckham also objected to Calkins' proposed method of recovery, which was to lift out the hull of the artifact with a clamshell and dragline:
 "I think the only permissible way to excavate such a vessel or artifact, would be through rigorous archeological techniques and there are well established techniques for excavation of ships."
 Beckham said also that he would have encouraged the development of Calkins’ project techniques and procedures, if any of the five middens (shell mounds) all located within a half mile radius of the skeletal find, had ever yielded any evidence of a shipwreck, which to Beckham's knowledge, they had not.
 He cited as an example the excavations carried out at a coastal Modoc village site north of San Francisco Bay, in the early 1930s, where porcelains and spikes were found that gave evidence of a wreck of one of the Manila galleons on the Northern California Coast.
 There is historic evidence that a line of these Spanish galleons sailed between Acapulco, Mexico and the Philippines on an annual basis from 1565 to 1815.
 Because landfalls at Cape Mendocino, on the Northern California Coast, were recorded during that time, it has led to speculation that vessels plying this trade route, would not have to be blown far off course to have wrecked on the upper Oregon beaches.
 History also reveals that in the two-and-a-half centuries of Spanish trade with the Philippines, at least two different galleons disappeared without a trace. One was the San Antonio in 1603—the other, the San Francisco Xavier in 1707.
 Manifests of these galleons had included gold ingots, cotton cloth, and cakes of white and yellow wax.
 Because the San Francisco Xavier was known to carry vast quantities of the same kind washed onto the sand at Nehalem from the wreckage of another legendary "winged canoe" around the 18th Century, historians find it reasonable to suppose the Nehalem wreck might have been the missing San Francisco Xavier.
 Also, before the age of ship to shore communication, acts of piracy went unrecorded, since there was no way to determine the fate of ships spirited away from their scheduled routes.
 Another reason Calkins is so sure he has located the resting place of the legendary ship is that his father, thinking there might be some possible connection with the skeletal find, guided him to the vicinity of the Salmon River Channel where, in 1913, Elmer Calkins had gill netted for salmon. Then, it has been a constant source of irritation to Calkins to find his nets entangled in some object seven or eight feet below the surface, within 300 yards of the shore where the three skeletons were found.
 On two of these occasions, Calkins had managed to pull the nets free to find them still clinging to part of the obstruction. One time it was a curved piece of wood resembling a rib of a ship. Another time the nets had yielded a heavily corroded copper nail.
 Calkins and other gillnetters, all annoyed by the same net-rending hindrance, had given it no more thought than to assume it was "just some old shipwreck."
 It has been suggested by two good working experts that the wood from some half core samples taken from the sunken object is a variety of ironwood found only in the southern hemisphere.
 The state has allowed one small shaft of light to penetrate the barrier to any further plans for recovery of the alleged artifact. The final report reads:

 ...On the one hand we see a potential opportunity to add to the historical background of our coast area, and on the other hand, we see the proposed disturbance of a fragile estuarine area of great value. Under ORS 541.605 et. seq., the Division is charged to protect the aquatic resources of the waters of the state.
 However, everyone benefits from new information on historical events.
 ...We are not prepared to close the door on a possible historical or treasure trove "find"... The Division of State Lands would consider a subsequent application in this matter, provided that additional, substantive evidence of the ship is obtained by non-destructive testing, and submitted to the division.

 Calkins hoped then that the Journal photo would prove sufficiently that the remains his father unearthed years ago, were indeed, the slain crew members from the wreckage of the legendary ship—one that quite possibly retains its valuable cargo of gold and silver.
 According to Fred Barrett, author of Sea Mountain, only one streetcar in the original fleet of 14 survived. It is believed to be the namesake of Street Car Village in the Cutler City section of Lincoln County. This streetcar was moved from Slick Rock Creek near Rose Lodge in the early 1970s. Today it houses the Monkey Business Joke Shop, a landmark on US-101 as you enter Lincoln City from the south.
 Back in 1936, many thought Elmer Calkins' desire for streetcar housing decades later was a joke. It wasn't, but a few decades later it turned out that way.

Boyer

Boyer is located in the extreme northeast section of Lincoln County, on OR-18, about eight miles east of Rose Lodge and one mile from the county line. The post office, named for pioneer settlers Julia and John Boyer, was established August 18, 1910, with Mervin O. Boyer first postmaster. The office closed to Rose Lodge March 31, 1915. In 1908, Julia and John Boyer settled near here. Phil Sheridan Road was probably built in 1856 while Sheridan was on police patrol duty at Ft. Yamhill. It facilitated necessary travel via the Old Elk Trail, ocean beaches, and Siletz River to the Siletz Indian Agency, and an attempt was made to make the Old Elk Trail a toll road as early as 1860. Other desultory attempts followed and in 1908, John Boyer improved the route, over which people had used to crossed the Coast Range since antiquity, and established the Salmon River Toll Road. which he and Julia Boyer operated for 12 years. In winter the road was almost impassable. In 1930, Boyer was honored at a public ceremony as “Father of the Salmon River Road.”

Boyer Gas Station and Post Office Town of Boyer 1950
Photo Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

Salmon River Area Settled 1074 AD

 The Salmon River Estuary is unique because its quiet wilderness and spectacular beauty have been relatively unspoiled over the centuries. From the first Native American settlements to present-day inhabitants and stewards, a conscious effort has been made to minimize man's impact upon the land.
 Archeological evidence shows that Salmon River Indians were present at the site as early as 1070 AD. These people are considered part of the Tillamook tribe, which ranged from Neahkahnie to Otter Rock.
 "They're a small group that like to live near small river mouths and bays," said North Lincoln Historical Museum curator Ketrina Poole.
 Moving with the seasons, they employed simple methods of food gathering and housing and relied heavily on salmon fishing for sustenance. The Salmon River Indians impressed non-indian visitors as being "very active, creative people... who were bold in interacting with the environment despite early technology," Poole said.

Willamette Valley Ranchers Arrive 1880s

 The most visible impact left from the early Indians is the grassy headland of Cascade Head (originally known as Grass or Bald Mountain), which they burned annually to create pasture land for elk and deer.
 The lush Salmon River estuary became known as prime pasture for cattle in the early 1800s, and ranchers from the Willamette Valley would drive their herds over the Coast Range to graze on the fertile land.
 Homesteaders began arriving later in the century, and early non-indian settlers included Savage, Long, Wallace, Tooze and Calkins.
 The families lived on fishing and dairy farming, which were conducted under often-harsh conditions. Records from Jimmy Gentry, son-in-law of James Savage, told how 25 cows were milked by had each morning, with the milk sold to a diary on Slab Creek Road near Neskowin. He also recalled stringing 150 feet of net across the Salmon River and filling a boat with fish on one tide. Chinook salmon sold for 25 cents a pound, coho went for ten cents a pound, and all other fish sold for five cents a pound.
 Pearl and Alex Frasier milked 40 cows in the rain for two years because it took that long to get enough lumber from a mill on Drift Creek to build a barn. The Frasiers made cheese with excess milk, which they sent by streamer to Portland or overland to Willamina.
 The Salmon River estuary was spared heavy development because of the river's medium size. Instead, settlers concentrated their lumber and fishing industries on larger rivers such as the Siletz and Nestucca.
 The lack of development plus the light use of the land by early Amerindians created the perfect venue for preservation and study, and the first opportunity came as early as 1934, when the Cascade Head Experimental Forest was created to examine the growth and development of Sitka spruce and hemlock.

Pixieland

 As years went by, other organizations and individuals—including The Nature Conservancy, Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, Cascade Head Ranch, and the Neskowin Coast Foundation—joined in the conservation effort. In the mid-1980s, the US forest Service became part as well by undertaking a major reclamation project on the estuary through the $204,000 purchase of Pixieland, an unsuccessful amusement park located between US-101 and OR-18 interchange and Otis.
 Owned and operated by Jerry Parks from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, Pixieland was located on 57 heavily-diked acres near the Salmon River. It never quite took off as a tourist spot, due to its remote location and short operating season.
 Conservation on the Salmon River continues to this day with the area being listed as a "defining feature" in state and national Scenic Byway plans, guaranteeing that yet more generations will enjoy an unspoiled vista from atop the grassy knoll of Cascade Head.

Rose Lodge

 When the first settlers came to the north end of Lincoln County they couldn't have foreseen the changes that have taken place and visioned that it would become the home of many retirees who sought the quiet beauty and mild climate of this coastal community. Maybe the name "Rose Lodge" sounded inviting. When a post office was established in 1908 with Ms. Oliver McMinn Dodson as postmaster, the post office was given this poetic name. A person wouldn’t expect to find roses in this remote wilderness, be, planted by Julia E. Dodson who had received 50 different varieties of roses from her father who lived in California.
 The first homesteaders cam