Tour parallels the south shore of Grays Harbor, one of the world’s greatest lumber-shipping ports. On the broad surface of the bay, lumber schooners, fish boats, and log booms move slowly against the background of the Aberdeen-Hoquiam industrial water front. Close-cropped meadow lands, dropping occasionally to marshes, border the ever-widening water boundaries of the harbor.

Mile: 44

Long dependent upon a small shingle mill, the city has benefited in recent years from development of a large oyster bed. An oyster cannery now furnishes seasonal employment to residents of the community. Presently, Ocean Spray operates a large bottling plant, producing juice from the large cranberry harvests nearby. The city’s name is for Simon Sterling Markham, a pioneer dairyman and cattle breeder who settled there in 1870 after spending...

Mile: 37

An attractive group of modern school buildings serves a scattered community. In the 1890s the Northern Pacific Railway promoted the site as its railway terminus on Grays Harbor. Lots were sold and buildings were erected, but shortly afterward, the railroad switched its terminal to Aberdeen, and the town lapsed into obscurity. On Gone now are most remnants of the town. The Ocosta Grange, used during the 1960s as a dance...

Mile: 35

A scattered little community on South Bay, was for many years the site of a whaling station built in the early 1900s by the American Pacific Whaling Company, where the rendering of whale oil and blubber, and sundry dissections of the world’s largest mammal, treated passing motorists to an unforgettable olfactory experience. West of Bay City, the highway crosses a long, curving wooden bridge (since replaced with a concrete span)...

Mile: 32

This state park provides camping, yurts, access to the beach, and is close to businesses in Westport. The setting provides easy access to mile of flat, sandy beaches within walking distance from camping sites. Businesses in Westport, including at least one brewery, are a short drive away for excursions and replenishing of supplies.

Mile: 30

A village of Finnish cranberry growers. In the neighborhood are more than 100 cranberry bogs. One block from and paralleling the highway is a long street bordered with neat, well-painted houses, each set trimly at the edge of its own rectangular cranberry field. The plants, tiny green and pink rosettes, are wedged tightly together; in the autumn they take on a crimson tint. Cranberry plants require four years to mature...

Mile: 27

Dunes of fine gray sand shift continually along the flat shoreline, restrained only by the rambling sand verbena, whose vining stalks, rubbery leaves, and small yellow blossoms stubbornly resist the wind. Here and there a fresh drift engulfs the brushy growth along the shore. Occasional clumps of stubby, gale-bent trees, gray with lichen, cling tenaciously to the land’s edge, as though conscious that this is their last grip on the...

Mile: 26

A fishing village with recreational facilities on Dibkey Slough at the north entrance of Willapa Harbor in northwest Pacific County. The name was chosen by local residents because the town borders on a small cove at the north entrance to the harbor. The town of North Cove was platted by Mrs. Lucy Johnson in February of 1884. At North Cove, are Coast Guard and Life Saving stations and the Willapa...

Mile: 21

Willapa Bay, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean and southern extension of Willapa Harbor, extends south from Goose Point to Tarlett Slough. The Native American name was Atsmitl, a Chehalis tribal designation. In the period of Spanish exploration, it was charted as Ensenada de Mal Arrimo. Early settlers and oyster harvesters used the name South Bay, as suggested by James Swan. Capt. John Meares, a British fur trader, named it...

Mile: 13

The seat of Pacific County and a lumber and shingle-manufacturing center. Proximity to the great oyster-growing beds of Willapa Harbor has made oyster canning an important industry. The stores and dwellings of the town, built on a narrow shelf between the hills and the river, are crowded close to the principal street and highway for a distance of nearly two miles. An annual event is the Water Carnival, held on...

Points of Interest

Port of Willapa Harbor

Pacific County Courthouse

South Bend’s First School

Masons Lodge

Residential Development

South Bend Carnegie Library

Lumber Exchange Building

Russell House

Mile: 54

On the south side of Willapa Harbor. In 1851, it was named for an oyster schooner, Robert Bruce, which was burned in Willapa Harbor by a crew member. The crew, called the Bruce Party, settled on the shore, which at first was named Bruceville. The community is on the site of an old Indian village called Whar-hoots.

Mile: 48

Between Bruceport and Bay Center the tour swings around the palisades of Willapa Harbor on a picturesque route. Flats alternate with winding inclines over timbered headlands, where the road runs through gaps of red earth lined with varicolored strata. On the flats between headlands are marshy meadows, some diked and converted into lush fields where cattle graze. Near Bone River is the unmarked site of James G. Swan’s donation land...

Mile: 45

A community at the mouth of the Nemah River on Willapa Bay. It is on the site of an old Indian village of the same name. The meaning of the word has been lost for the Indian band which lived there became extinct in the 1850s. A post office operated between 1894 and 1923.

Mile: 35

James D. and Rachel Holman once had a Donation Land Claim in the area and in 1873 subdivided their ocean property and promoted it as a summer resort. When the railroad to Ilwaco was completed in 1889 Holman became a station along the rail line.

Points of Interest

Schulderman House

Mile: 13

A weathered fishing village. When Pacific County was established on February 4, 1851, this fishing center became the county seat and was then called Chenookville or Chinookville. The name is a distortion of the "Tsinuk or Chenoke, the name of an Indian tribe, which lived near the mouth of the Columbia River. Although antedated by the neighboring settlement of Chinookville, long since disintegrated, Chinook glories in its historic past. Captain...

Mile: 5

The tour rims the north bank of the Columbia, nearly four miles wide at this point. The highway enters a tunnel under a steep promontory, on the top of which is Fort Columbia, one of the many guardians of the river entrance, unobservable from the road. When Captain Robert Gray landed near here May 12, 1792, thousands of Native Americans from near-by villages flocked to the river to see his...

Mile: 3

In McGowan, are the remains of a former ferry dock, wrecked by a storm and abandoned many years ago. The old piling and deserted fish traps raise desolate gray forms above the surface of the river. A roadside post office is practically all that is left of McGowan. The community was named for J. P. McGowan, who settled in 1852 and operated a salmon salting station and cannery on a...

Mile: 2

Mile: 1