(Sign A) This building was a Military Blockhouse built at the Grand Ronde Agency by Willamette Valley settlers in 1856. U.S. troops were sent to the station the same year and it was named "Fort Yamhill." Among the famous Army officers stationed at this fort were Sheridan, Wheeler, A.J. Smith, D.A. Russell and Hazen.
Long before the first Euro-American emigrants trekked westward, this road was a trail used by the Takelma and Shasta Peoples as a trade route. With the arrival of settlers and gold-seekers, the trail quickly became a wagon road called “Indian Market Road.”
Deer Island in the Columbia was named by the Lewis and Clark Expedition which stopped to dine here November 5, 1805 on its way down river. Homeward bound the explorers camped on the island on March 28,1806. Captain Clark recorded "This morning we set out very early and at 9 a.m. arrived at an old Indian village on NE side of Deer Island where we found our hunters had halted and left one man with the canoes at their camp. They arrived last evening and six of them turned out very early to hunt, at 10 a.m. They all returned to camp having killed seven deer.
Chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, philanthropist, and founder of Oregon City. The land on the east bank of the Willamette River at the falls was claimed by Dr. McLoughlin and the Hudson’s Bay Co. in 1828-29. First called Willamette Falls, the town was platted in 1842 and was named Oregon City by Dr. McLoughlin. Oregon City was the first incorporated U.S. city west of the Rocky Mountains, 1844. Provisional and Territorial Capital-1843-52, and the continuous Seat of Government for Clackamas County since 1843. Dr.
On January 8, 1806 William Clark and perhaps fourteen of the famous expedition reached a Tillamook village of five cabins on a creek which Captain Clark named Ecola or Whale Creek. Three days earlier, two men sent out from Fort Clatsop to locate a salt making site had brought back whale blubber given them by Beach Indians. Appreciating the welcome addition to the explorers' diet, Clark set out to find the whale or buy its blubber.
Native Americans occupied the banks of this river and its bay long before Euro-American settlements appeared. Empire City, a bustling port of call that occupied this portion of Coos Bay’s waterfront, was once the site of an ancient Coos Indian village called Hanisitch. In 1826, fur trappers for the Hudson Bay Company were the first to meet the local natives. Emigrant settlers arrived here in 1853 to found Empire City. The community quickly established itself as an economic and commercial center.
Alexander R. McLeod led the first overland expeditions to Oregon's central and southern coast between 1826-27. McLeod, a Chief Trader for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, sought furs and trading opportunities with tribes such as the Tillamook, Umpqua, Coos, and Coquille. Local tribes also provided information, canoes, and other assistance.
Fort Clatsop, built by Lewis and Clark in December, 1805 for use as winter headquarters, was situated eight-tenths of a mile south of this point. The site was chosen because of the game in the surrounding country and because it was convenient to the coast where salt could be made for the journey of the exploration party back to the Missouri. Elk were found in abundance and salt was made at what is now Seaside. The local Indians were friendly but it was disappointing that no trading vessels entered the river during the stay.
Fort Stevens was named for General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, first Governor of Washington Territory, who died a hero of the Civil War of 1862. The fort was built in 1846 and decommissioned in 1947. Some 3000 acres of sandy wasteland known as Clatsop Sand Plains were stabilized here in the 1930’s by the planting of beach grass, shrubs and trees. This park area was donated to the public by Clatsop County in 1955. The Columbia River to the north was discovered by the American fur trader, Captain Robert Gray in 1792 and was named after his ship.
From 1845 to 1849, George Abernethy was the first Provisional Governor of the Oregon Country, which extended from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains and from California to Northern British Columbia. After arriving in Oregon in 1840 as part of the Methodist Mission at Champoeg, he was involved in a series of meetings that ended in the celebrated May 2, 1843, vote to organize a Provisional Government under the United States rather than Great Britain.
