'JUNE'S GARDEN’
VILLAGE OF FLOWERS
(continued)
HISTORY OF CANNON BEACH PARKS
In 1962 it was recommended to the Cannon
Beach City Council by the Planning Board and
Parks Commission that a certain designated area
within city limits be set aside for use exclusively as a
park and recreation area. The ordinance was passed
on January 7, 1963, by the Council, Smith, Dueber,
North, Mcrae, and newly elected mayor Gerald R.
Gower. The area set aside was approximately two
acres that bordered Spruce St., Second St.,
Conference grounds, and west of wetlands and Ecola
Creek. This also included the property on the
southwest comer that the Commercial Club leased
from the City when they built their club house. The
Commercial Club later became the Chamber of
Commerce.
This large piece was covered with
underbrush, willows, blackberries, and some alder.
A majority of the land was swampy. The vision of
the people was to clear the underbrush, install some
drainage, and fill an area large enough for sports.
This came about with volunteer help and donations
of equipment.
Townspeople of all ages helped clear the field
of underbrush. Hundreds of yards of sand were
brought from the beach for fill. Howard Johnson
Sand and Gravel Construction Co. offered a loader,
Van Fleet and Crown Zellerbach trucks and drivers,
also Jim Scarbough, construction contractor, lent his
help. The added sand raised the field enough to use
as a ball field for the Little League baseball team
organized and coached by Theodore (Ted) Erickson,
also nicknamed ‘The Bear.’ Erickson’s son
Steve, an outstanding athlete, also helped coach.
Eventually, Erickson and other volunteers added to
the park a back-stop, bleachers, basketball hoop, and
a tract for go-carts.
After the field was completed, at least to be
able to use for sports part of the year, the first tennis
court was built north of the Commercial Club
building. Mr. Hoyt, a road contractor and a friend
of Erickson, was hired to black-top the surface of the
tennis court. Money to pay for the black-topping and
the tall fence needed to enclose the court was raised
in various ways. From donated lumber, picnic tables
and benches were built to be used in the park.
Donors who gave $ 10.00 or more for a table were
honored by having*their names carved on the table.
The American Legion donated two benches for the
tennis court.
In 1962 the Women’s Garden Club entered a
Sears, Roebuck contest which offered funds for
community landscaping projects. They won the
contest. Their submitted plans were to landscape
around the Commercial Club building and new City
Park. Their plans also showed filling a ditch north
the the building to provide more space to landscape.
They used the funds to plant shrubs around the
building, to plant trees in the park, and a red
climbing rose on the fence of the tennis court. They
set up a program to plant more trees in the park each
Arbor Day, which they did for many years.
In August 1963, Lee Firebaugh donated and
installed water pipes into the park, providing water
taps for maintenance of the new plantings.
In 1964 a water fountain was added in
memory of Harley Sroufe. Margaret and Harley
Sroufe and family moved to Cannon Beach in 1951
and owned the grocery store (now Osburn’s) for
twenty years or more. The shell style fountain was
designed
and made by John Yeon, a friend of the Sroufes.
The bronze Yeon used to cast the fountain part had
been donated. The fountain was originally installed
south of the tennis court, later moved to its new site
east of the Chamber building.
Eventually a levee was built on the east side
of the park to ward off flooding from the wetlands
and Ecola Creek. This levee also provided for a road
to be built to enter from Second St. There still
remained, however, standing water in the large field
from winter storms. Drainage pipe was installed.
During the 1970s Jess Brownrig, a partner,
and some volunteers did the maintenance, mainly
mowing the large grassed area
In 1973 Don Howell, Public Works Director,
with the help of volunteers built a children’s
playground north of the tennis court. They filled the
area with three feet of sand, built swings, a sandbox,
and a metal climbing device.
In 1976 at the west entrance by the children’s
playground the American Legion Auxilliary had a
stone monument built by brick and stone mason Milt
Lagerquist. Inscribed on the monument:
AMERICA WE CAN’T GIVE YOU A BETTER
GIFT THAN YOU’VE GIVEN US, FREEDOM.
Sally Stevens
In this Bicentennial year by Cannon Beach
Post 168 American Legion
Dedicated June 26, 1976
Sally Stevens is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Bud Stevens.
Materials left from excavation of the new
sewer system built during the early 1980s were
added to the park’s field. At that time the drainage
was improved.
Up to 1983 there were only two other parks
besides City Park: Whale Park and South End Park.
Bordering Hemlock St. and Highway 101 at
the southernmost exit and entrance into Cannon
Beach, a grassy knoll surrounded by patches of
many varieties of native berries, a replica of the
cannon, a picnic table and benches had been
installed. The replica of the cannon was moved
years later to the grounds of the Cannon Beach
Historical Society. Also at one time the Garden Club
planted flowers in this small park and at the northern
exit and entrance.
Whale Park was designed by Larry
Bonderant. This park is located at the north end of
the business district. It overlooks the ocean and
Ecola Creek. The wooden sculpture of the whale
was designed and carved by Greg Hartwick in the
late 1970s.
Taken from part of a journal telling of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition that wintered at Fort
Clatsop from December 8, 1905 until March 23,
1906, ‘Captain William Clark, 12 men, Sacajawea
& infant traveled far south to an Indian Village which
was located on a creek,’ to buy blubber and oil to
supplement their meager food supply. The
Expedition was told the Indians had procured
blubber and oil from a nearby beached whale. In
Clark’s words, ‘proceeded to the place the whale
perished, found only the skeleton of this monster,
measured 105 ft.’ Clark did purchase 300 pounds of
blubber and a few gallons of oil the Indians had
boiled in a large wooden trough by means of hot
stones.
The creek they wrote of is now called Ecola
Creek (Ecola, the Chinook word for whale). Thus
the name Whale Park and the sculptured whale also
symbolize this event.
Bonderant’s plans were designed for low
maintenance. The landscaping he and others did
includes cement paths, some native shrubs such as
salal, a few trees, a mound seeded in grass which
provides more interest to the otherwise flat area, and
benches located for viewing. Entering the park, the
raised sculpture is silhouetted against a broad
expanse of ocean and sky. The park was dedicated
in November 1980.
In the early 1980s one city worker, Nick
Morris classified as General Utility Worker, took
over the maintenance of the three parks. Other
landscape maintenance was minimal as the
restrooms, parking lots, and beach accesses had no
formal landscaping.
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S p e c ia liz in g in :
Environmentally fr ie n d ly
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-SYrcr XgMontagrie
P.O. Box lid!)
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DUAMt IOHNSOM
(to be continued)
Casual Dining
Overlooking the Hestucca River
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himself with two thousand books
and thenceforward have at least
one place in the world in which
it is possible to be happy.
Augustine Birrell
UPPER LETT EDtE FWRC.H - W
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