THE NORTH COAST TIMES EAGLE, FRIDAY, 21 MARCH 1980
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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.
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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
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