The 2 baby deer are checking out the new grass seed.
The 2 baby deer are checking out the new grass seed.
The 2 baby deer are checking out the new grass seed.
This little one is so cute.
Before the judging... Smokey the Bear Sandcastle.
Pigs in Space
Nancy Gorshe (The Depot) was our tour guide for the 2 plus hour tour of the Clamshell Railroad.
Inside The Depot...built in 1905 by the same builder as our house...Charles Beaver..who was the son-in-law of Stout...the founder of Seaview.
Art Walk at the Port of Ilwaco. Pirates were the theme...among the art, wine and song.
Big weekend! SandSations and Clamshell Railroad Days
Sand castle contest from 2004.
The railroad ran by the tides.
Summer tourists traveled steamships down the Columbia River and boarded the narrow guage rail cars for destinations on the Peninsula. Since it ran by the tides, it was called The Clamshell Railroad.
Circa 1910. The train end is in front of The Depot platform. The 2 story house (with porch) is the location of our office. Sadly, the original office building is no longer standing. This photo was taken just at the end of our driveway.... looking north.
(Our home is located on the original Stout Hotel grounds and across the street from Seaview's Depot. Our home was built in 1905 after the Hotel burnt down. The office is in the house next to The Depot.)
The Peninsula’s beloved narrow-gauge railroad made its last run in September 1930, but many in Seaview and the other towns on the line still celebrate our train with Clamshell Railroad Days in July.
Seaview’s popularity as a vacation site began in the 1870s when families would arrive by horseback, wagon, stagecoach and steamer to camp in the Willows, north of Cape Disappointment. The transition of Seaview from campground to resort is credited to Jonathon L. Stout who is believed to have come to the Peninsula as a barrel maker from Ohio in 1859. He married Ann Elizabeth Gearhart, daughter of Oregon’s Phillip Gearhart in 1860. He was postmaster of Ilwaco, operated a liquor store and stagecoach line. They homesteaded 153.5 acres near the Willows in 1880 to create a summer retreat that was registered as “Sea View” at the Oysterville courthouse in 1881.
Lewis Alfred Loomis, one of the Peninsula’s founding fathers secured a mail contract between Astoria, Oregon and Olympia, the capital of Washington. The slowness of the stage line used, convinced Loomis that he should build a railroad to handle his business. Construction of his railroad, the Ilwaco Railroad and Navigation Co., began in March 1888 at the Ilwaco wharf, which was the central place of its business. Steamers could only reach the wharf after the tide was in mid-flood. So train departures were successively later over a month’s time. It is likely that the Ilwaco line was the only organized railroad to operate by a tide table, thus its nickname, the “Clamshell Railroad.”
The system’s first depot was built in Ilwaco not far from the wharf. Frank Strauhal, a summer camper, purchased Stout’s store and bathhouse in Seaview. He offered the railroad a lot, if a depot was erected on it. The line accepted and thus a wooden platform shed was built as a train stop on the current Seaview Depot site. The railroad reached Long Beach by July 1888. Track laying continued at a leisurely pace terminating at Nahcotta, 13 and a half miles north of Ilwaco.
In addition to the mail contract, passenger business and freight helped the railroad prosper. Over a thousand sacks of oysters were transported each week from Nahcotta to Ilwaco. From Ilwaco they were carried by the General Canby to Astoria for shipment to market in San Francisco. The freight charge from Nahcotta to Astoria was seventy-five cents a sack. Thursday was oyster day. Citizens with business in Astoria generally avoided that day.
In 1900, Loomis retired selling to a subsidiary of Union Pacific, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company. Equipment was immediately improved and train crews were required to wear uniforms. At a 1904 Directors’ meeting the construction of a regular depot to replace the platform shed at Seaview was authorized. The railroad continued in operation until Sept. 10, 1930, when car ferries and highways brought most of us here.
Copied from Chinook Oberserver.2004 and courtesy of The Depot restaurant.
Sources: Raymond J. Feagans, “The Railroad That Ran by the Tide”; Thomas E. Jessett, “Ilwaco Railroad”; Lucile McDonald, “Coast Country.”
The Peninsula’s beloved narrow-gauge railroad made its last run in September 1930, but many in Seaview and the other towns on the line still celebrate our train with Clamshell Railroad Days in July.
Seaview’s popularity as a vacation site began in the 1870s when families would arrive by horseback, wagon, stagecoach and steamer to camp in the Willows, north of Cape Disappointment. The transition of Seaview from campground to resort is credited to Jonathon L. Stout who is believed to have come to the Peninsula as a barrel maker from Ohio in 1859. He married Ann Elizabeth Gearhart, daughter of Oregon’s Phillip Gearhart in 1860. He was postmaster of Ilwaco, operated a liquor store and stagecoach line. They homesteaded 153.5 acres near the Willows in 1880 to create a summer retreat that was registered as “Sea View” at the Oysterville courthouse in 1881.
Lewis Alfred Loomis, one of the Peninsula’s founding fathers secured a mail contract between Astoria, Oregon and Olympia, the capital of Washington. The slowness of the stage line used, convinced Loomis that he should build a railroad to handle his business. Construction of his railroad, the Ilwaco Railroad and Navigation Co., began in March 1888 at the Ilwaco wharf, which was the central place of its business. Steamers could only reach the wharf after the tide was in mid-flood. So train departures were successively later over a month’s time. It is likely that the Ilwaco line was the only organized railroad to operate by a tide table, thus its nickname, the “Clamshell Railroad.”
The system’s first depot was built in Ilwaco not far from the wharf. Frank Strauhal, a summer camper, purchased Stout’s store and bathhouse in Seaview. He offered the railroad a lot, if a depot was erected on it. The line accepted and thus a wooden platform shed was built as a train stop on the current Seaview Depot site. The railroad reached Long Beach by July 1888. Track laying continued at a leisurely pace terminating at Nahcotta, 13 and a half miles north of Ilwaco.
In addition to the mail contract, passenger business and freight helped the railroad prosper. Over a thousand sacks of oysters were transported each week from Nahcotta to Ilwaco. From Ilwaco they were carried by the General Canby to Astoria for shipment to market in San Francisco. The freight charge from Nahcotta to Astoria was seventy-five cents a sack. Thursday was oyster day. Citizens with business in Astoria generally avoided that day.
In 1900, Loomis retired selling to a subsidiary of Union Pacific, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company. Equipment was immediately improved and train crews were required to wear uniforms. At a 1904 Directors’ meeting the construction of a regular depot to replace the platform shed at Seaview was authorized. The railroad continued in operation until Sept. 10, 1930, when car ferries and highways brought most of us here.
Copied from Chinook Oberserver.2004 and courtesy of The Depot restaurant.
Sources: Raymond J. Feagans, “The Railroad That Ran by the Tide”; Thomas E. Jessett, “Ilwaco Railroad”; Lucile McDonald, “Coast Country.”
Calypso's deer friends like to hang out... eyeing my new flowers and avoiding the noisy tourists.
So much prep work to do... before painting and roofing.
Paris receiving her first pro golf lesson.
Old Fashioned 4th of July parade in Ocean Park... here are the famous and adored shopping cart drill team from Oakies Sentry Market.
Our booth in Ocean Park.
Nanci Main (ex-owner of The Ark Restaurant) and her famous little dog...walking in the parade.
Stan Wolfe's granddaughter Lili (short brunette) in the parade.
In the parade, the Cranberry Queens, chapter of the Red Hat Society.
Ocean Park parade. Gordon Crump, Rudy Deswart, Sue Pattillo.