Military Highways

Highway 101 has been designated one of America's Scenic Highways. The Oregon Coast Visitors Association puts out thousands and thousands of brochures about it. It's certainly a spectacular road and one of the "signature" landmarks of the Oregon Coast, but I have to wonder about the "byway" part. It's our primary highway. It doesn't go "by" anything. When it was put together in the 1920's and 1930's, it wasn't just to be scenic. The intent was to improve America's ability to defend its coastline, which is why it was called the "Roosevelt Military Road." It's the best way to see a lot of Oregon Coast real estate.

Free and Open Beaches on the Oregon Coast

Every mile, and there are some 350 of them, of the Oregon Coast is open to the public. In contrast, California has only about 90 miles out of more than a thousand miles of coastline owned by the public. Governor Oswald West convinced the Oregon Legislature in 1913 to make the beaches public property. A later governor, Tom McCall, brought about legislation in 1967 that guaranteed that the beaches would remain forever accessible to anyone. Oregon State Parks is generally responsible for keeping the faith on this issue.

You can't climb across private property to get there if the owner doesn't want to let you, but once you're on the beach, you can wander anywhere you like. It's something that Oregonians have ensured will be there permanently for current residents and generations to come.

The Lewis and Clark Trail on the Oregon Coast

When Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific Ocean, they didn't stop exploring. They didn't go all that far, up a few miles on the Washington side, but they did get around Tillamook Head, which is a pretty impressive thousand-foot monolith rising to the south of what is now Seaside. Lewis and Clark heard that the Indians had a beached whale that they were processing, and the expedition wanted some of it. So they clambered around Tillamook Head to get to Cannon Beach, as it is now known. About eight miles of the Oregon Coast Trail now follow the route that the Corps of Discovery followed. There are some pretty amazing vistas to be seen today, as there were two hundred years ago.

Looking for trees

Redwoods are found naturally all along the northern California coast. They extend just a little bit into Oregon. The farthest north natural grove of redwoods is near Alfred E. Loeb State Park, on the Chetco River upstream from Brookings. There's a trail to the the redwoods and you can also reach an old growth grove of myrtle, from which myrtlewood is obtained. It's funny that there are no natural groves of redwoods farther north, but you can plant a redwood seedling in your hard in Oregon or Washington and pretty quick you'll see why redwoods get to be giants. I'm pretty sure it grows faster than Douglas fir, maybe not quite as thick as spruce, but a lot nicer looking.

You'll find a lot of interesting trees in the Oregon State Parks system, especially on the Oregon Coast.

The new surge in graveyard activity

The Eugene, Oregon, newspaper (Register-Guard) carried a letter today, criticizing an editorial cartoonist for showing a guy digging extra graves in a graveyard, with some sort of comment about how this was insensitive to the troops. Sorry, but there's very little you can say about the war in Itaq without noticing that there is likely to be an increase in troops dying. Very difficult to talk about escalating a war without escalating the deaths.

So what are we supposed to do? Do we just let George Bush continue to imply that if we don't fight al-Qaeda in Iraq, they will soon be wading ashore on the Oregon Coast, ready to launch suicide attacks in Florence if we're not alert? Somebody needs to speak about what's actually happening. It's too bad we have troops in Iraq who may feel we're not supporting them. We do support them. We want them home.

Coos Wagon Road

Most of the pioneer trails have either been aBandoned or are now completely developed that they don't conjure up any images of early settlers. The Coos Bay Wagon Road is an exception. Running 78 miles today, the road was opened in 1872 as a link between Roseburg and Coos Bay. Even though it has been upgraded, it still runs through some very scenic back country. If you drive it today, there will be eleven miles of unpaved road if you follow the complete route. The new natural gas pipeline to Coos Bay follows the right of way of the old Wagon Road. It will open up a lot of economic activity in Coos County.

If you follow the route to the coast in order to get married, ask Wren Smart for her assistance. She's experienced at it, having helped many people get married and having done it three times herself.

A dying craft

We're gradually running out of dorymen in Pacific City. A dory is a flat-bottomed, double-ended fishing boat whose pointed bow and stern let is slide over the waves. Traditionally, these have been launched directly into the surfae from the beach of Cape Kiwanda near Haystack Rock. It's such a remarkable feature of Pacific City that they have an annual Dory Festival to celebrate it. However, the life of a genuine doryman pretty demanding and the number of people who know how to build these things is small. Like so many other crafts, it's probably going to become something that only gets done in museums.

But Pacific City is too much fun to be depressed about something like this. There's a fun pub (Pelican Pub) down on the beach and it's not far to Tillamook, where you can enjoy the Tillamook Cheese Factory and the Tillamook Air Museum.

Big Trees

Oregon has some big trees, but none bigger than the Klootchy Creek Spruce. It sits within Clatsop County's Klootchy Creek County Park, six miles southeast of Seaside off Highway 26. It was already more than 250 years old when Columbus reached America and rises more than 200 feet in the air from a base circumferance of 56 feet. Unfortunately, it is showing its age. During a recent winter storm, the tree lost a chunk of wood and revealed extensive rot. Nobody is likely to try to cut it down, but sooner or later, it's going to fall.

Trees grow quickly on the Oregon Coast. People seem to think that the only really big trees are "ancient," but they can grow to great size in decades, rather than centuries.

History of Astoria

Astoria has so many old houses, and they are perched on so many steep hills, that people call the place "Little San Francisco." The men who made their fortunes guiding ships across the Columbia River bar, or in the timber or fishing industries, built their homes where they could get views of the Columbia River.

Another way that Astoria got a reputation as being like San Francisco was its waterfront. In 1888, it is said that on Astor Street you could find one shoemaker, two boatbuilders, three laundries, and 21 saloons. According to the local newspaper, Astor Street was regarded along with the Barbary Coast as one of the worst seaport hell-holes in the world.

Port Orford -- Almost as old

Port Orford is the oldest platted townsite on the Oregon Coast. It beats out Astoria, which is technically on the Columbia River rather than the coast. Port Orford may also be the furthest west.

In the middle of Port Orford is the Battle Rock wayside, which consists essentially of a parking lot looking out at Battle Rock. Here, the first settlers held out against attacks from local Indians, who were understandably unimpressed with the prospect of whites taking up residence in the area. In the end, the whites won.

Astoria, the really old American West

I've been invited to attend the umpteenth annual banquet of the Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce later this month. It's been about ten years since I went to one of these affairs. The last one was something like the 125th annual. I remember being very impressed that someone was running an annual dinner for more years than Florence had been in existence. Astoria is the oldest American city west of the Mississippi.

Astoria got its start when the Astor fur company opened a post around 1810. I don't recall the exact year, but it was a bit after Lewis and Clark. It was lost to the British during the War of 1812 and eventually came back, but it declined as a fur outpost as the fur trade itself declined.

Eventually, people in Astoria began to make big bucks guiding ships across the Columbia River Bar. Captain George Flavel, who built the famous Flavel Mansion overlooking downtown Astoria, could watch the ship traffic from his abode. Astoria is still important due to its location at the mouth of the river, but there are now plenty of other aspects. Tourism is strong and it's also getting known as a great place to retire.

When times were harder

We're coming up to the Oregon sesquicentennial in another couple years. I attended the SOVA marketing symposium at Seven Feathers Casino in Canyonville last year and there was a presentation by the local historical society. One of the things they talked about was how it took something like one or two weeks just to make the trip from Grants Pass to Canyonville. It now takes about an hour on Interstate 5. On the Oregon Coast, there wasn't any way to make the journey at all. In fact, it couldn't be done until the 1930's when Highway 101 was built.

Even those of us who like to grumble about the soft lives our children lead have a hard time comparing our travails to those faced by Oregon's real pioneers.