Lasting Legacy of the CCC

 

At the Forest History Center on State Street in Salem there stands a life-size statue of a hunky, shirtless, young man leaning on a shovel. 

CCC Worker Statue

He is posed in front of a wooden, green building with a pair of gables and twin dormer windows. Their connection is a federal program initiated by Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after his inauguration to provide jobs for the nation’s growing number of unemployed young men.

Known as the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, it operated between 1933 and 1942, and was one of the most successful and popular New Deal programs.  Oregon was an active participant with over 60 camps scattered around the state. The men built roads, bridges, trails, campgrounds, fought forest fires, and planted trees. In exchange for their labor, they received education, job training, food and shelter (three hots and a cot) and the grand sum of $30 a month. They could keep $5 with the other $25 sent home to their families.  Even though eighty years have passed and many CCC efforts are long gone, about one-third of the permanent projects in Oregon remain and can still be enjoyed in forests and parks around the state.

Forest History Center, Salem

The Forest History Center is a good place to begin. The building was constructed by the CCC in 1936 to house their headquarters, and was moved to its present location from the east side of Mill Creek in 2001. Today, a section of the museum is dedicated to the CCC program and features camp photos, a wall map with site locations, and miscellaneous memorabilia donated by alumni. The CCC Worker Memorial Statue in front was dedicated in 2002.

Silver Falls Lodge

One of the program’s permanent projects is a short distance east of Salem at Silver Falls State Park. The CCC was responsible for constructing much of the infrastructure seen in the South Falls Day Use Area including rocks walls, bridges, stairs and the rustic South Falls Lodge. The lodge and surrounding ten acres are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, the CCC developed the park’s popular Trail of the Ten Falls.

West Shelter, Cape Perpetua

The Oregon Coast hosted several CCC camps, and remnants of Camp Cape Creek remain visible on the site of the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center, two miles south of Yachats.  Workers here built the campground and network of trails, but their most noted accomplishment was the West Shelter observation point at the top of the headland. Built of rocks, this sturdy structure has survived years of Pacific storms and even served as a coastal watch station during World War II.  Today’s visitors are more interested in spotting migrating whales than enemy boats or planes.

Mt. Hood National Forest, east of Portland, also saw many CCC projects. Camp Zigzag on Highway 26, was the longest running camp in the Northwest, and its workers built the Zigzag Ranger Station on the south side of the road. This compound consisting of various outbuildings is constructed in the Cascadian Rustic style using natural materials such as wood shingles, weatherboard, and native stone.  A similar, but more off-the-beaten-path ranger station can be visited on Forest Road 42, about 20 miles southeast of Government Camp. Here, at the Clackamas Lake Historic Ranger Station, are eleven buildings including a small visitor center. The ranger’s residence was built by the CCC in 1933 and is available for rental during the summer months.

Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge, probably the best known Depression-era project in Oregon, was constructed by the WPA, but the CCC worked on the lodge’s terracing, stonework, and landscaping. They built the Timberline Trail encircling Mt. Hood and worked on a variety of other projects in the area including Cloud Cap Inn and several campgrounds.

Malheur Nat'l Wildlife Visitor Center

In other parts of the state you’ll find evidence of the CCC at Crater Lake’s Rim Road and Rim Village, the rock work at Oregon Cave’s Chateau, the Visitor Center and Museum at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, Jessie Honeymoon State Park near Florence, and the Dee Wright Observatory at the summit of McKenzie Pass.

The CCC program lasted only nine years.  By 1942, the country was gearing up for WWII and young men were leaving to join the army.  However, their hard work through those difficult Depression years left a significant contribution and lasting legacy to Oregon’s public lands.

 

 

 

Shore Acres Park, a Seasonal Delight

What an amazing Christmas present Cassie Simpson received in 1906! Her husband, lumber baron and shipping tycoon Louis J. Simpson, gifted her with a splendid mansion on a high promontory overlooking the Pacific Ocean near Cape Arago on the southern Oregon Coast. It must have been a challenge to wrap with its heated indoor pool, huge stone fireplace, myrtlewood wall paneling, and 2700-square foot ballroom.

What began as a summer home eventually became their fulltime residence as art work, riding stables, tennis courts, and a Roman bath were added to the property. Louis had a strong interest in developing a formal garden. The rich soil and coastal, temperate climate created perfect growing conditions, and soon hydrangeas and roses were supplemented with exotic plants from around the world delivered via his ships.

Sadly, Cassie died in 1921 and later that year the entire house burned to the ground. Six years later, an even grander replacement mansion was constructed on the site, but the realities of the approaching financial Depression of the 1930s drained Simpson’s resources. The house was never completed and gradually fell into disrepair. The property was sold to the state of Oregon in 1942 and, during World War II, was used as a barracks for soldiers.

After the war, the house was torn down but the formal garden, gardener’s cottage, and spectacular view remained to become Shore Acres State Park. The park, located 13 miles south of Coos Bay/North Bend, occupies a three-mile stretch of coastline between Sunset Bay and Cape Arago. On the site where the Simpsons’ mansion once stood is a glass-enclosed observation building. This is a great spot for viewing wild, winter waves and migrating whales while staying dry and out of the wind.

Trails to the north and south offer more dramatic views of the surf and tilted layers of exposed rock where wave erosion has created unusual holes and knobs on the sandstone cliffs. Slightly south of the park, a new interpretive overlook offers views to Shell Island and Simpson Reef. Noisy, barking seals, sea lions, and elephant seals can be seen year-round, and gray whales travel along the coast here from December to June.

Competing with this rugged seascape is a remarkable seven-acre botanical garden.  Carefully manicured and maintained, it offers a long season of blooms starting with spring bulbs and tulips (over 8,000), azaleas, and rhododendrons.  Later, roses and other perennials and annuals provide summer color while dahlias take center stage in the early fall. There is also a Japanese-style garden with a lily pond guarded by a pair of bronze herons, and a 95-foot tall Monterey pine dating back to the original estate. An extensive gift shop at the garden’s entrance offers many gardening related items and crafts made by local artisans.

Beginning in 1987, the non-profit Friends of Shore Acres started an annual Christmas tradition of decorating the garden with lights. Today it takes 1500 volunteers to string 300,000 lights around trees and shrubs and 26 holiday trees. Large sculptures shaped by lights include a whale, jellyfish, frog, Dungeness crab, butterflies, and even underwater koi fish in the lily pond. Refreshments and musical entertainment complete the holiday experience. Last year this community event drew 47,000 visitors from 28 countries and 45 states to this remote section of the Oregon Coast. This year’s display will begin November 28 and run through December 31.

Bandon-by-the-Sea

 

When Irish immigrant George Bennett arrived at the mouth of the Coquille River on the southern Oregon Coast he brought the name of his Irish hometown, Bandon, to the new settlement.  Additionally, he brought an Irish shrub called gorse (ulex europaeus) and planted it as a fence hedge surrounding his property.

Gorse is plentiful along Oregon's South Coast

This ornamental evergreen with its bright yellow blossoms soon infested the area, spreading along the sand dunes and throughout the town. Unfortunately, the high oil content of its foliage made the plant extremely flammable, a factor that would change Bandon forever.

In 1936, the town was a thriving community: a logging and fishing center, home to cows and cranberries, and the busiest port between San Francisco and Portland. On a warm and dry September evening, a shift in winds brought a nearby forest fire closer to town. When it reached the gorse, the fire exploded into an inferno completely destroying the entire commercial district in a short time and leaving 1800 inhabitants homeless.

Coquille River Lighthouse

Like the mythological Phoenix, the town rose from the ashes and rebuilt itself. Today, Bandon-by-the-Sea, as it is known in tourism parlance, is a favorite destination on the Oregon Coast. The Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, a complex of five courses just north of town, attracts players from all over the world. Set on a bluff overlooking the ocean and dunes, it consistently appears on any list of top ten golf courses and compares favorably to some of the best in Scotland and Ireland.

There is more than golf to keep visitors coming back. Like any coastal community, the ocean is the big draw, and the setting in Bandon couldn’t be more spectacular. Wide, sandy beaches are easily accessible and offer a plethora of driftwood, agates, jasper, and petrified wood. Offshore are wildly sculpted sea stacks and monolithic rock formations providing sanctuary for a wide variety of sea birds. Where the Coquille River meets the ocean, an octagonal lighthouse with a tall round tower stands guard over the perilous bar. Built in 1896, it was the last lighthouse constructed along the Oregon Coast. It was decommissioned in 1939, but volunteers and lighthouse enthusiasts keep this landmark maintained and opened to the public during summer months.

Wooden, welcome arches lure travelers along Highway 101 to detour into Bandon’s Old Town. This compact downtown offers a variety of shops, galleries, restaurants, an excellent history museum, independent bookstore, and plenty of free parking. A walkable waterfront lines one of the two main streets allowing close access to fishing boats, charters, and fresh seafood. Bandon Fish

Market makes a tasty stop for fish and chips followed by a dessert visit to Cranberry Sweets located across the street. This local institution features all sorts of cranberry candy goodies, and they are most generous with their free samples.

Cranberries are an important business here and Bandon boasts of being “The Cranberry Capital of Oregon.” The acidic, sandy soil and mild climate make it a perfect place for cranberries and there are nearly 1600 acres under cultivation. Bogs can be seen along Highway 101 north and south of town with most of these berries destined for bottles of Ocean Spray juice.  On the second full weekend in September, the town celebrates this crop with a four-day cranberry festival.

Bandon Fish Market

Bandon is also known for its dairy industry and for years, Bandon Cheese was a popular stop for visitors traveling the coast. After the business was sold to Tillamook Cheese, the creamery and retail store closed, but a new cheese factory opened this spring. Face Rock Creamery will be offering a variety of their locally made cheddars as well as squeaky cheese curds and Umpqua ice cream cones.

The town of Bandon is bookended by two state parks. To the north is Bullards Beach State Park with a large campground, sandy beach, and access to the lighthouse. To the south, is a string of state owned lands including Face Rock Scenic Viewpoint and Bandon Natural Area offering beach access and close-up viewing of the rock formations offshore. Beach Loop Road parallels the ocean, connecting all these scenic vistas. No trip to Bandon would be complete without a stop at 11^th Avenue and Beach Loop Road at Coquille Point for a calendar view of the very best of the Oregon Coast.

From Coquille Point

Ghost Canneries of the Lower Columbia River

 

 It was much more than our childhood memories of those unsavory, school-lunch salmon patties served with creamed peas that brought down the salmon cannery business along the lower Columbia.  A combination of overfishing, degradation of spawning habitat upstream, and the construction of dams on the Columbia and its tributaries combined to destroy what had been in early history, salmon runs estimated as large as 16 million annually.

For centuries, natives fished the river, preserving the salmon through smoking or drying processes. Early Europeans tried salting and packing salmon in barrels which were shipped to Hawaii and the East Coast with mixed results. However, improvements in canning methods meant the fish could be packed safely and travel all over the world.  The Hume brothers opened the first salmon cannery in 1866 in Eagle Cliff, Washington, a few miles upstream from present day Cathlamet. Their success spawned the development of more canneries along the lower Columbia River, and by the heyday of the late 1880s, there were 38 canneries in the area, packing as much as 30 million, one-pound cans a year. That’s a lot of potential salmon patties.

Pier 39, Astoria

The canneries brought jobs to the area along with a rich mix of ethnic groups whose cultures and influence have remained.  In the early days, much of the dirty work of butchering salmon was done by Chinese men supplied by labor contractors out of San Francisco.  With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, canneries turned to Filipinos and Japanese workers, while at the same time immigrants from Scandinavia, Finland, Yugoslavia and the Mediterranean arrived to fish and labor in the canneries.

Inside the Bumble Bee Museum

Astoria, Oregon, was the center of the canning business and carried the moniker, Cannery Capital of the World. Once home to 22 canneries, it’s a good place to begin a tour of what remains of this important industry.  Nearly all the wooden cannery buildings have succumbed to old age and blustery winter storms, but a few remain in Astoria. At the end of 39^th St. on the eastern end of town is Pier 39, the old Hanthorn/Bumble Bee Cannery.  It was the last operating cannery in the area, closing in 1980. Today it houses a coffee shop, pub, and the free Bumble Bee museum. Inside are wooden gill-netter boats, old cannery processing equipment, and photos of the days when Bumble Bee was Astoria’s largest employer.

Big Red, Astoria

Nearby, at the end of 31^st St., is a large, hulking, red building sitting out in the river and looking a bit tattered. Known as Big Red, it served as a satellite station for Union Fishermen’s Coop where fishermen could drop off their catch and spread their nets to dry. Over 100 years old, the wooden structure lost its top story in a wind storm in 2007, but efforts are underway to save this piece of history.

Cross the Astoria-Megler Bridge to the Washington side of the river and follow Hwy 401 east to Knappton Cove. Rotting wooden posts extending out into the water are all that remain of the Eureka and Epicure Packing Co. In 1899, the federal government built a quarantine station on the site of the abandoned cannery. Ships arriving in Astoria were inspected for any signs of contagious diseases. If infected, they were directed across the river to the quarantine station, or pest house.  Ships were fumigated with burning sulfur and passengers treated for disease. Today the building houses a museum open on Saturdays during summer months.

Knappton Cove Quarantine Station

Altoona, Washington

A bit further east, a winding road leads south from Rosburg to the ghost town of Altoona. A few houses and wooden pilings in the river are all that remain of a town that was once a major port for steamers traveling between Portland and Astoria. This stretch of the river had six canneries in the early 1900s, but today it is a quiet spot in a beautiful setting.  Large rock pillars topped with hemlocks sit in the harbor, and the end-of-the-road atmosphere makes it well worth the 13-mile, round-trip detour.

In the town of Cathlamet along the riverfront, a little upstream from the boarded-up Water Rat Tap Tavern, is what remains of the Warren Cannery. Two years ago, a large part of the building collapsed and today what little remains is being salvaged. Once gone, it will join its fellow ghost canneries along the lower Columbia.

Remnants of the Warren Cannery, Cathlamet

Walking the Trails at Cape Perpetua

View at Cape Perpetua

On one of those endless searches for a Northwest Passage, British Captain James Cook, cruising along what is now Oregon’s Central Coast, spotted a large, towering headland.  It was March 7, 1778, and he named this landmark Cape Perpetua, in honor of St. Perptua’s Day.  On that same date in 203, this Christian martyr was thrown into an arena in Carthage, North Africa; mauled by a mad cow; and beheaded.  Not a good day for her. Captain Cook didn’t fare much better. Not only did he fail to find the elusive water route across North America, but later in the voyage he was stabbed to death by angry Hawaiian natives, abruptly ending his exploration career.

Today’s visitor, on the other hand, will have great success exploring Cape Perpetua. Begin at the Visitor Center, two miles south of Yachats on Highway 101, where movies and exhibits interpret the natural and cultural history of the area. From here, 26 miles of hiking trails fan out in all directions and offer an excellent cross-section of coastal scenery and flora. 

Rocky beach and tidepools on Capt. Cook Trail

  The Captain Cook Trail to the tide pools is certainly a must. Shortly beyond the Visitor Center, the trail passes by the foundations of the Cape Creek Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp. One of many such camps established during the Depression, Cape Creek offered unemployed young men job opportunities and $30 a month. At one point, there were 4 bunkhouses, mess hall, rec room, infirmary, and 200 men. These camp residents constructed many of the local trails, bridges, campgrounds and roads, including the one to the summit of Cape Perpetua. The trail continues through a tunnel under the highway to the tide pools and Spouting Horn. In addition to searching for sea stars, purple sea urchins, hermit crabs, and green anemones in this rocky tidal zone, look for Indian shell middens. Middens are ancient landfills and garbage heaps; a place where mussel-gathering natives threw their empty shells as long as 6000 years ago. North of here is the Devil’s Churn offering a close-up view of the power of the ocean. During storms and rough seas, waves smash through a narrow chasm in the volcanic rock creating huge plumes of sea water and foam.

Devil"s Churn

    The Giant Spruce Trail is an easy, one mile walk paralleling Cape Creek to a 500 year-old Sitka spruce. The nearly fifteen foot thick tree began life as a sprout on a fallen log. Over time, this nurse log rotted away leaving a large gaping hole at the tree’s base.

West Shelter

Cape Perpetua is the highest viewpoint accessible by car on the Oregon Coast and offers a stunning view on clear days. The St. Perpetua Trail to the overlook climbs 700 feet uphill from the Visitor Center by way of eleven switchbacks. The easier option is to drive to the summit on Forest Service Roads 55 and 5553, on the east side of Highway 101. From the overlook parking lot, the Whispering Spruce Trail makes an easy quarter mile loop around the top and includes the West Shelter. Built by the CCC in the summer of 1933, this historic stone lookout provides views of 150 miles of coastland from Cape Foulweather to Cape Blanco and 20 miles out to sea on a clear day. It was used by the Army during World War II to search for unfriendly ships and planes. Today, it is better used as a lookout for migrating whales.
For the more adventuresome, the Cook’s Ridge and Gwynn Creek Trails make a 6.5-mile loop from the Visitor Center through old-growth forests of Douglas fir and Sitka Spruce.

The Cape Perpetua Visitor Center is open seven days a week from10:00 am to 5:30 pm. Ranger guided walks (Eco Treks) are offered on Tuesdays at 1:00pm in the month of August.

Tillamook County Quilt Trail

The latest effort to spur tourism in rural areas while promoting an American folk art tradition and bringing communities together is the Quilt Trail. It all began with a quilter, Donna Sue Groves, in Adams County, Ohio. Groves, a field representative for the Ohio Arts Council, wanted to paint a single quilt square on her barn as a tribute to her mother, also an avid quilter. Other neighbors became interested in the idea and it was decided to paint 20 local barns with quilt squares, the number on an average quilt. The project would serve as a celebration of an Appalachian folk art tradition and encourage tourists to drive through the back roads of Southern Ohio.

Soon, quilt patterns, typically 8-foot-square, with colorful names like Brown Goose, Snail’s Trail, Broken Dishes, and Old Maid’s Puzzle began appearing on Adams County barns and a Clothesline of Quilts was born. The concept was so popular it soon spread to other Ohio counties. Quilting groups, 4-H clubs, art councils, tourism offices, and other community organizations embraced the idea, and quilt barns began appearing throughout Kentucky, Tennessee and other Appalachian states.

Today, Clotheslines of Quilts and Quilt Trails can be found in over 23 states and it is estimated over 1500 barns are painted with quilt squares. Oregon’s contribution to this concept can be found in Tillamook County, which has enjoyed a long tradition of dairy farming and has plenty of barns. This is the first Quilt Block Trail on the West Coast. The project began in 2009 by identifying historic barns and decorating them with painted, wooden quilt blocks. Most of the quilt patterns come from a book, Patterns for an Oregon Quilt, and were designed exclusively for Oregon. Pick up a brochure/map at the Chamber of Commerce center on Hwy. 101 next to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, Latimer Quilt & Textile Center (pdf map available at web site), or the wonderful Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. Not only does the brochure provide a detailed map to the 13 barns, but also a family history of each farm.

Tillamook Forest Center

Mention Tillamook Burn today and the image of a charred, grilled cheese sandwich might come to mind. However, 77 years ago, it meant one thing: fire.
On a hot, dry day in August, 1933, a wayward spark at a logging site in the Coast Range west of Forest Grove, Oregon, set off an intense inferno. Fueled by strong winds and low humidity, the raging fire burned over 250,000 acres and destroyed 12-billion board feet of prime, old-growth Douglas fir in one week. Smoke darkened the skies from Portland to Astoria, charred needles rained on the coastal town of Tillamook, and ashes fell on decks of ships 500 miles at sea.

The fire set off a six-year jinx with reoccurring fires in 1939, 1945, and 1951. Collectively they became known as the Tillamook Burn. In 1948, Oregon voters approved $12 million in bonds designated to restore the fire-ravaged forests. These funds initiated one of the largest reforestation projects ever undertaken. For the first time, helicopters were used to drop millions of seeds. School groups, volunteers, forest workers, and prison inmates planted over 72 million Douglas fir seedlings, much to the delight of the local deer and elk population. Burnt wasteland began to transform to a lush, green forest, and in 1973, the area was dedicated and renamed the Tillamook State Forest.
The tragedy of the fire and the success story of the reforestation come alive at the Tillamook Forest Center on Highway 6 about 50 miles west of Portland, and 20 miles east of Tillamook. Opened in 2006, the center sits in the middle of a narrow gorge along the Wilson River. The building uses many recycled and green materials, and eco-friendly building techniques. For example, the water pond outside collects rainwater to cool the building, flush the toilets, and fill the fire-sprinkling system.

A visit to the center should begin with a viewing of the award-winning film, “Legacy of Fire.” Through dramatic film footage, photographs, and interviews, it tells the story of the Tillamook Burn in a riveting and fascinating 15 minutes. In the museum, interactive exhibits, artifacts, oral histories, and life-size displays convey the past, present, and future of the forest and highlight both the natural and human history of the region.

In the rear of the building, an attractive, pedestrian suspension bridge spans the Wilson River and provides access to a number of hiking trails. In the front of the center is a replica of a forest fire lookout tower similar to the one that first spotted the fire in 1933. A climb up 72 stairs leads to the top of the tower where interior displays show what life was like for fire spotters in the early 1900s.

The Center, owned and operated by the Oregon Department of Forestry, is free of charge and offers an active program of interpretive events. It makes a worthwhile stop on the way to the ocean or as a day trip destination.

Where the Columbia Meets the Pacific

Most major rivers spend a leisurely time reaching the point where their waters empty into an ocean. Like the Nile, Mississippi, Danube, or Ganges; they meander through a complex of channels and waterways, depositing their sediments and creating vast deltas, rich in nutrients and wildlife. Not so for the Columbia River. It heads full bore into the Pacific Ocean bringing the force of 1300-miles of accumulated water and debris into an ocean not as placid as its name suggests. Here, at Astoria, this dramatic meeting of river and sea has created one of the most treacherous bars in any ocean. Since 1792, nearly 2000 ships have sunk in the area and thousands of lives have been lost, earning it the title “Graveyard of the Pacific”.

The story of the river and its rich maritime past is told at the Columbia River Maritime Museum located in Astoria along Highway 30 on the east side of downtown. Look for the building with a roof shaped like a giant wave. Considered one of the best maritime museums on the West Coast, it is the official maritime museum of the State of Oregon.

Inside, interpretive exhibits trace the area’s maritime history from fur-trapper days to modern Coast Guard rescues. The hands-on, interactive displays allow you to take a spin at piloting a tugboat, walk across the deck of a WWII Navy destroyer, view a Coast Guard rescue operation, and observe real-life river traffic from floor-to-ceiling windows. Also interesting is a look at the importance of the salmon canning industry which attracted workers from all over the world to Astoria. At one time, there were over 30 canneries in town and nearly one-third of the population of Clatsop County was Chinese. A good worker could clean and gut a fish in eight strokes and 45 seconds.

A new exhibit installed this year is “Crossing the Bar: Perilous Passage” and explores the infamous entrance to the Columbia. During winter storms, waves can crest as high as 40-feet and it takes special skills and knowledge to navigate in these waters. Videos taken by the US Coast Guard and Columbia River Bar Pilots are displayed on widescreens, and the effect is so realistic you may need a dose of Dramamine to keep from getting seasick.

Berthed alongside the museum and included in the admission is the US Coast Guard Lightship Columbia. This ship served as a floating lighthouse at the river’s entrance between 1950 and 1979, when she was replaced with a mechanized buoy. The ship’s interior is unchanged since its retirement and you are free to walk through the living quarters to get a good flavor of life onboard, a world described as “a long stretch of monotony intermixed with riding out gale force storms.”

Across the street from the maritime museum in the old city hall is the Heritage Museum. Like many seaports, Astoria has a salty past and all its dirty laundry is on display in a second-floor exhibit called “Vice and Virtue in Clatsop County: 1890 to Prohibition”. There’s no sugar-coating of local history here as you learn about bootlegging, prostitution, drugs, and political corruption. A reconstructed Astoria saloon offers an opportunity to spin the roulette wheel; it’s all legal and G-rated. On the first floor, exhibits provide a look at the area’s tamer side including a display of artifacts from Clatsop and Chinook tribes as well as the Scandinavian and Asian immigrants who worked in the shipping and canning industries.

If all this salmon business has made you hungry, hop on the Astoria Riverfront Trolley and head downtown. There is a trolley stop in front of the maritime museum, and for the grand sum of $1 you can travel in style in a 97-year old, restored trolley car. While there are several good seafood restaurants in Astoria, for something totally unique and tasty, try the Drina Daisy on Commercial Street which serves up traditional, ethnic dishes from Bosnia. The cuisine, a blend of Mediterranean/Greek and Eastern Europe is well-prepared and presented. Selections on the wine and beer list include an assortment of difficult-to-find delights from the former Yugoslavia.

Winter Beach Getaway in Seaside

Gone are the crowds; gone is the traffic; gone the carnival atmosphere of video arcades, bumper cars, t-shirt and Surf Dog stands. Still, Seaside offers the long, flat expanse of sand and stunning setting that have made this town Oregon’s oldest beach resort. In the middle of a wild winter storm or on one of those rare sunny February days, Seaside has none of the lonely, deserted feel of an off-season beach town. On the contrary, it’s the ideal time for a coastal getaway.

Seaside has been hosting visitors since the local Clatsop and Tillamook tribes greeted members of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery in 1805. A few of the men established a salt works in the area, and by boiling down sea water were able to extract several bushels of salt for the long trek back to St. Louis.

In the early 1870s, Ben Holladay, a Portland developer, built a luxury resort hotel here known as the Seaside House. With heavy promotion throughout the West, the resort became a popular destination and the growing town took on the name Seaside. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, city folks from Portland would travel by ship down the Columbia River to the Astoria area and then by stagecoach, and later by train, south to Seaside. While families stayed at the beach all summer, working fathers would commute back and forth from Portland on the weekends. Trains arriving at Seaside early Saturday and returning late Sunday became known as the “Daddy Trains.” By 1938, the Sunset Highway (US 26) was completed to the Coast and the rail service closed.

All this history is interpreted in detail at the Seaside Historical Society Museum with displays of American Indian artifacts, photos and memorabilia of Seaside’s early hotels and resorts, a diorama of the town in 1899, and some unusual, old fire fighting and printing equipment. Next door is the Butterfield Cottage where volunteers lead tours through a restored beach cottage furnished and decorated in 1912-style. Available at the museum is a brochure, “Walking Tour of the Historic Seaside Prom,” which describes some of the interesting sights along Seaside’s most famous manmade attraction.

The Promenade, or Prom as it is known locally, was built in 1920 to replace an earlier wooden boardwalk. The 1.6-mile concrete walkway parallels the ocean offering panoramic views of the beach and Tillamook Head to the south. It’s the perfect spot for a leisurely stroll or bike ride. Where Broadway meets the Prom is a traffic roundabout called the Turnaround. In the center, a bronze statue of Lewis and Clark occupies the most prominent spot in town. From here, broad staircases lead down to the beach.

A few blocks north of the turnaround is a small, quaint aquarium. Originally built in 1914 as a natatorium or indoor, saltwater pool, it was converted to an aquarium in 1937, making it one of the oldest on the Pacific Coast. It houses a collection of northwest marine life. To the south, the inland side of the Prom is lined with attractive Arts and Crafts style bungalows and English cottages built in the early 1900s as summer homes for some of Portland’s prominent families. About eight blocks south at Lewis and Clark Way is a reconstruction of the Corps’ salt-making operation.

After a walk along the Prom, it is time to sample some of Seaside’s fresh local seafood. Some of the popular standbys in the center of town include Norma’s Ocean Diner offering famous clam chowder, fish and chips, and crab melts; Dooger’s Seafood, a casual family style restaurant serving a variety of seafood followed by homemade marionberry cobbler; and the Pig ‘N Pancake with popular breakfast items all day and chowder and other seafood at lunch and dinner.

As might be expected, Seaside has a variety of accommodations from charming bed and breakfasts to upscale, luxury hotels. Many offer attractive, reduced winter, mid-week rates. To learn more, check out the Seaside Visitors Bureau .

Sea Lions On the Move

The popular, beloved sea lions of San Francisco's Pier 39 began to disappear around Thanksgiving. Apparently, like many Californians, they decided to move north to Oregon. Since December, thousands of sea lions have turned up north of Florence on Oregon's Central Coast. Scientists say it's all about anchovies; I say it's all about the scenery!