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About The North Coast times-eagle. (Wheeler, Oregon) 1971-2007 | View Entire Issue (March 21, 1980)
THE NORTH COAST TIMES EAGLE, FRIDAY, 21 MARCH 1980 C ROOMS M Page 5 \ r 7/f IZ 7 rS P •>* t-ks A Short H isto r y o f S e a s id e b y C o n n ie A n d e rs o n p ity th is busy m o n s te r , m a n k in d , n o t. p r o g r e s s is a c o m f o r ta b le d i s e a s e .” - e . e. c u m m in g s Somewhere behind the pavement, the aluminum-framed, junk-filled windows, the tra ffic , the pinball machines and snow-cone litte r lurks the ghost of a pretty little beach town. A town that welcomed progress as a friend, resisted not at a ll, and in the short span of a man’ s lifetim e, died under its feet with little more than a whimper. Seaside, whatever it is today, is not a pretty little town, hither in physical appearance or charectar. The Oregon coast wears on its shores a string of such pretty little towns . . . . Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Neha lem. A ll today facing the same forces and modes of think ing which have transformed so many of Oregon’s coastal gems into a string of tasteless clunkers. Like Godzilla in a greenhouse, the tourist industry is a powerful force plowing through the small town’ s natural environment, leaving in its wake a tra il of highway archi tecture, parking lots, condominiums, mobile home courts, souvenier junk outlets and the threat of legalized gambling. And the pretty little town loses more than just its physical beauty to the impersonal wasteland of the comm ercially- controlled tourist trap. It loses its smalltown energy and charectar, which are the truest sources of its beauty and grace and vhich loss no cosmetic compromises by deve lopers can remedy. Or replace. ---------- 4?^ — The history of Seaside and its determined wooing of the tourist industry is a story of ideas, dreams and schemes, some of which were carried out, others which (m ercifully) died on the vine. And always, it has been a story measured by tabulated numbers of money-spending tourist bodies and punctuated by the dollar sign. Volume meant success and prosperity. Photographs from less than 90 years ago depict Seaside as a rustic, simple and relaxed ocean resort town, a res pite from the busyness of the city and a journey back to the wonders of nature. The town consisted of cottages, summer-tents, and a few boarding houses and hotels nest led into a naturally beautiful area. The food was wholesome, entertainment was nature-oriented and the environment, for the most part, was left alone and appreciated. Today’s frantic Broadway Street was a shell-covered lane winding through a grove of trees which sheltered and lent an a ir of privacy to white tents perched on platforms. The Neca icum Kiver, teeming with fish, flowed through the village along treelined banks. The hotels, whether rustic o r grand, were dignified, with shell-covered walking paths and wood en walkways through the woods, graceful footbridges over the Necanicum and pastures of m ilk cows so that guests might have fresh cream daily. Their tables were laden with wild game and fresh seafood. Entertainment then was simple and in tune with the nat ural environment. There were well-used hiking tra ils on Tillamook Head, hotel sponsored moonlight marshmallow roasts on the beach, clambakes given by a favorite board ing house “ every Saturday night,’’ and moonlight canoe rides down the Necanicum Kiver with lanterns hanging iron the trees to light the way. Hunting and fishing were taken for granted with abundant salmon and trout in the streams, and deer, elk, bear and cougar in the surrounding forests. Finally, though, in the age-old pattern of the settlement of the wilds, came the entrepreneurs, the speculators, the men of vision and change. Men who saw the potential of the tourist industry. And so began the schemes, the schams, the meglomaniacal visions and the lucky little tricks of the trade which made a few folks rich, gave a lot of folks jobs, and drove others under o r away. And left those who rema ined a town whose only natural charm lay in the long nar row strip of beach which simply was too powerful to suc cumb to the numerous attempts at change and exploitation. Along with a candy shop, bowling alley and a saloon along Shell Koad, the firs t decade of the 1900’s brought several hints of what was to come in the fast-moving 20’ » and 30’s, in 1906 came the fir s t m erry-go-round to Seaside, along with the fir s t bank, a skating rink, additions to hotels, and the birth o f a community commercial club called "The Seaside Development League,” which adopted as its motto “ A Greater Seaside" and published a souvenier postcard depicting drawings of Seaside’s hoped-for deepwater harbor and ship canal. (More about the canal later.) The club felt that the postcard “ would prove effective advertising if gen e rally used, and a ll loyal citizens w ill use them in prefer- ance to a ll other souvenier postcards," This was the time for drawing more “ big-business” thinkers to the area, and, coincidentally, in 1905 came the excited disclosure that diamonds and rubies were being discovered in the diggings of the ochre mine located on Elk Creek Koad, south of Seaside. The “ find” brought many ambiitous speculators from Portland to stake claims, after which no more precious gems were to be found. But the speculators were there to stay. By 1906 the real estate game was on. In August of that year the Seaside Signal tells the story of a Seaside man who, in 1902, leased a plot of ground 100-feet square at $60 per year with an option to buy for $600. Only four years later the man received a standing offer of $4,000 fo r the property. $$$ August 4th, 1906, six thousand visitors were counted in Seaside. A Development during this time was not confined to the immediate Seaside area, and an interesting plan was being made for a point south, namely ( annon Beach’s C hapmnn Point. A brochure had been published by an agency called the Oregon Land & Timber Company, out of Portland, which described the beauties of Seal Rock Beach, which was iden tified as the beachland extending a half mile in either d ir ection from Elk ( reek. The brochure offered lots fo r sale along this street of beach for $125 to $200 with “ lib e ra l" terms, and went on to describe the elaborate hotel planned for the tip of C hapman Point. This “ modern, attractive” hotel’ s most interesting innovation was that it would boast a suspension bridge from the Point out to the rocks in the sea, where observation parlors would be erected fo r “ the delight and recreation of the guests.” The C hapman Point incident, no doubt, was part of what prompted the early show of jealous competition fo r the tourist dollar as early as 1907 when, as reported by the Seaside Signal, visitors reported attempts by Seasiders to discourage parties going to Elk Creek (Cannon Beach). Apparently, the parties were informed that the road was impassable, no teams passed over it, not even m ail wag ons, there were no hotels or accomodations of any kind (there were actually two hotels there at the tim e), and no means of getting supplies; and besides “ there re a lly was no beach below Seaside.’’ The editor, in reporting the false stories, implies that it may seem justifiable “ to those whose business and property interests lie here, but the invariable result is a lot of good advertising fo r the sec tion o f country that is decried.’ ’ As an indication that there was s till a bit of the rustic about the area, the 190« paper carried an ad from a builder who stated, “ Parties desiring tent floors laid and tents erected can have work promptly and economically done by applying to B.A. Chalmers.” A year latei the town went stylishly cosmopolitan when the Signal described the opening of a chop suey and Chinese noodle factory on Shell Koad which had “ secured the serv ices of a Mongolian chef who was fo r many years the nixid- les and suey manufacturer to the Dowager Empress Tsi An.” The decade also felt the onset of the chronic problems which plague a tourist town. 1906 had the fir s t curfew es tablished, and in 190« the editor of the Signal suggested there should be a place for young men to hang out in the evenings other than saloons, and also stated that the city was proposing a new bridge across the Necanicum so that families would not have to “ run the gauntlet of the large number of men in front of the four saloons which they are compelled to pass.” $$$ More than seven thousand visitors were in Seaside d u r ing the 1909 July Fourth holiday. C o n t in u e d on P a g e S ix /
