In 1778, when the United States was declaring its independence, no visitors had recorded contact with what is now the central Oregon coast. Captain James Cook passed by the southern coast, naming Cape Perpetua, and then landed at Yaquina Bay. He continued north, naming Cape Foulweather, reflecting the rough weather he encountered. Through the mid-1800s trappers ventured south from the Hudson Bay Company, headquartered at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.

The history of the central coast was changed forever in 1855 when the United States established a 1.3 million-acre Reservation. More than 4,000 people from 20 different tribes were resettled on this Reservation. Though the government deemed the area unfit for farming and inaccessible, there were other resources.

In 1861, two events again changed the course of history. A sea captain was shown beds of rare, delicate oysters in Yaquina Bay. Companies from San Francisco came to harvest the oysters, creating conflicts with payment to Reservation Indians and depleting the supply within a few years.

About the same time, regular troops on the reservation were needed for the Civil War, and they were replaced by volunteer soldiers who saw the possibilities of the resources and lobbied to open up the land.

Responding to this pressure, the government opened the Yaquina Bay area to non-Indian settlement in 1866. Reservation employees, fur traders, commercial fisherman, and others seeking opportunity and free land staked their claims.

#2

Sam Case claimed the west end of the bay front and named it Newport. Case and his friend Dr. J.R. Bayley built the Ocean House, probably the first resort hotel on Oregon's coast, on the site of the current Coast Guard station.

John Nye followed a creek flowing to the ocean and laid claim to land there, but the beachfront didn't develop until the late 1800s.

John and Joseph Graham, William Mackey, Royal Bensell, and others claimed land near what is now Toledo. Toledo's logging industry got a boost in 1917 when the Army built the infrastructure for a milling operation to produce lightweight wood for airplane construction during WWI.

The southern and northern areas of the Reservation were opened to settlement later. Waldport was founded and named by David Ruble in the fall of 1879. That same year Louis Southworth, a freed black slave, and James Doty homesteaded on the Alsea River.

The Ludemanns and Bobells, who had emigrated from Germany to Minnesota, moved on to Oregon and homesteaded on farms on the upper Yachats River. In 1887 the first post office in Ocean View (Yachats) was established about a mile north of the Yachats River.

The area now known as Depoe Bay is built on land allotted to Charley Depot and his family in 1894. Depot's name was given to him when he worked odd jobs at Depot Slough because his native name was difficult to pronounce. Some of Charley's descendents adopted the spelling D-e-P-o-e. In June 1927 the Sunset Investment Co. of Portland platted the town of DePoe Bay. In 1928, when a post office was approved, the spelling was simplified to Depoe Bay by the government.

#3

North Lincoln County was a land of homesteads that grew up along the Salmon River, Drift Creek, Schooner Creek, Cougar Mountain and the Siletz River after that area was opened to settlement in 1895. The oldest town in North County is Kernville. Daniel Kern of Portland built a fish cannery on the Siletz River in 1986.

Lincoln City started out as a string of towns along seven miles of the coast. In 1965 a new city, Lincoln City, took the place of Cutler City, Taft, Nelscott, Oceanlake, and Delake.

Charles Depoe and other relatives inherited property they sold to Mr. and Mrs. George Cutler of Dallas, who established a town site. In 1925, a group of families settled in and around the town, and the first post office was establish and named in honor of the Cutlers.

Taft's first residents were Jacob and Cissie Johnson, government patent land grantees from the Coast Reservation. They owned about 80 acres each where most of the town of Taft originated. In 1904 John Bones opened the first store in Taft, named after William Howard Taft, and a post office was established with Bones as postmaster. The first hotel also was established by the Bones. The Johnsons sold their land in 1933 to Fred Robison who started Siletz bay Trading Company. Taft incorporated in 1949.

Nelscott, north of Taft, was established in 1925 from land purchased by Charles P. Nelson and Dr. W.G. Scott. The Nelscott land Company was established in October of that year, and the company divided up the 170-acre tract and sold lots to people wanting a summer place at the coast. The Nelscott Auto Park was established in 1926, and in 1929 a post office was established with Nelson as the postmaster. In 1927 Frank Hallock built the second store in Nelscott. Nelscott was originally planned as a residential and beach resort and it has remained much the same through the years.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hostetler bought land near the mouth of Devils Lake in 1910 and moved there in 1924. It was through their efforts that the town grew as rapidly as it did. The first store and post office were established in Delake in 1924. The town incorporated in 1949. The first regatta on Devils Lake took place in July 1933 with about 15,000 in attendance.

#4

The history of Oceanlake is the most complex in the north county. Mary P. Sax, a devout Catholic, and her husband, John, donated 80 acres of land to a Catholic priest, Father Charles Raymond. Fr. Raymond had intrigued sax with the idea of creating a Catholic resort-like community where the Indians from Siletz could fraternize with his Catholic friends from Portland. The church was built, but the priest's dream died after conflicts with his order and bishop and growing commercial development of the area.

By 1926, the area had Johnson's Sweet Shop, Oceanlake Dance Hall, a garage, grocery store, and drugstore. By 1937 Lakeside Theater had opened. St. Augustione's Church and the theater (now called the Bijou) still stand with some changes. The Dorchester House, built as a luxury hotel, restaurant, and dance hall, opened in 1935, its construction having been delayed by the Depression. The Dorchester is now a retirement community listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Oceanlake incorporated in 1945.

Wecoma, an area just north of Oceanlake, was established as a town in 1935 by W.H. Lohkamp of Portland who built a grocery store and service station and became the town's first postmaster. In 1955 Wecoma was annexed to Oceanlake.

Neotsu, named for an Indian word meaning "lake near the ocean" was granted a post office in 1900. Otis was established the same year. The post office moved from Neotsu to Otis, then to Devils Lake, then back to Otis, then again to Neotsu in 1928. Otis was named for the nephew of Archibald Thompson, the community's first postmaster.

#5

Rose Lodge was first homesteaded by Jim Crowley. The first store was built by the Dodson family, and a post office was established in 1908 with Julia E. Dodson as postmaster. The name of the community came from the variety of roses planted by Julia in front of the post office building.

Transportation has always been a hardship for coastal residents and businesses. In 1871 Yaquina Bay Lighthouse was built to aid commercial shipping. It was replaced three years later by Yaquina Head Lighthouse. A railroad was completed at the end of 1884 and came from as far as a newly created town, Yaquina City, on the bay east of Newport.

Until 1893 the central coast was part of Benton County. Ben Jones, known as the father of Lincoln County, fed up with treatment of coastal residents by county officials in Corvallis, pushed through legislation to form Lincoln County.

Bridges were critical to land travel. Until 1936, when the Yaquina and Alsea Bay bridges were completed, vehicles could not travel the coastline without ferrying across bays or moving onto the beach. A drawbridge across the Siletz River was completed in 1926. This bridge was replaced in 1974 with a modern bridge 800 feet downriver.

The Salmon River Highway opened Saturday, July 19, 1930. The 22 mile cutoff leaves the Portland-Tillamook highway at Valley Junction, passes through Grand Ronde and Rose Lodge, and terminates at Otis. The road follows old Indian routes to the coast, the same ones white settlers followed as the easiest route through the mountains.

Lincoln County Historical Society