Coos Bay and North Bend

With 38,000 people, Coos Bay and its surrounding areas make up the largest town on the Oregon Coast. It consists of a peninsula surrounded by the broad waters of Coos Bay, one of the finest natural harbors on the Pacific. The actual town of Coos Bay takes up the southern part of the peninsula and the town of North Bend takes up the northern part. The fishing village of Charleston, at the mouth of Coos Bay to the southwest, makes up the rest of the urban area. This area has no sprawl and no suburbs, the result of having no interstate highway. Sea cliffs stretch to the south and dunes to the north, with the Coast Range forming a wall inland. It may well be the most isolated city of this size in the continental United States.

Up through 1944 Coos Bay was known as Marshfield, the original core of today's downtown. Marshfield centered on the docks at the uppermost end of Coos Bay, the farthest point of navigation by deep draft vessels. Docks were built over the marshy edge of the bayfront, and buildings were constructed on the docks. Then new docks would be extended from the old docks, which would be replaced with permanent structures constructed on fill. This went on for decades. In the 1990s town fathers were thunderstruck to discover that nearly all of downtown had been built on this fill — and the State of Oregon, as owner of all navigable waters, retained title to it. This was no minor matter, as the marshes had extended three blocks inland. Clear title has, of course, long since been resolved. North of downtown leached pilings of old docks still extend into the bay.

Both Coos Bay and North Bend have boardwalks. Coos Bay's runs along its downtown waterfront for four blocks along US 101, and is lined by yacht slips, interpretive exhibits, tug boat moorings, and a floating fish market noted for its fish and chips. North Bend's extends for two blocks along the bay, half of it built over the water; you'll find it two blocks east of US 101 via Virginia Ave. It gives good views of the active logging dock immediately to its north — a rare survival of a working downtown dock.

Charleston, on the urban area's southwestern edge, is one of the Oregon Coast's most important fisheries, both commercial and sport. It sits near the entrance of Coos Bay at the mouth of one of its largest sloughs, South Slough, forming a naturally sheltered harbor. It has extensive docks and boat ramps, several fish processing plants, a marine institute, and several restaurants serving locally caught fish.

Coos Bay has always been a major shipping point for the Douglas fir harvested in the forests of the Coast Range. Somewhere around half the forests are government owned and these are unlogged, tied up in environmental lawsuits. Only the privately owned lands are now logged, much of it in a one-square mile checkerboard left behind by 19th Century railroad land grants. Timber is loaded onto ships at several points along Coos Bay, including downtown North Bend, while the local railroad hauls out cut lumber.

One of America's finest natural Pacific ports, Coos Bay's three giant curves offer protected harbor to deep draft ships with plenty of places to construct docks. It opened to traffic in pioneer days — but on the Oregon Coast "pioneer" means the 1880s. By 1915 the bay's three major ports had come into existence. Charleston, at the mouth of the bay, was a natural site for a fishery but was originally a gold rush town where equipment could be shipped from San Francisco then rafted up a slough. North Bend, as its name implies, is at the northernmost point of the bay's great curve. Marshfield — now Coos Bay — marked the point where goods had to be transfered between deep draft vessels and small vessels coming up the sloughs. Most of this was timber rafted to the deep water port, and the bleached pilings that line the sloughs are relics of those days.

The variety of recreational opportunities is impressive. The Charleston fisheries are adjacent to the tall cliffs of Cape Arago, a dozen miles southwest of downtown. On the other side of the bay sits the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, with 55 miles of wide beach and thousand foot dunes managed by the National Forest Service; large areas are reserved for both ATVs and hikers, the two of them kept carefully apart. The city itself has some excellent museums, a quaint downtown, and an old fashioned vibe caused by never having had an interstate highway. Behind the town lies the Coast Range, whose forest lands alternate between private timber and public preservation. Here you'll find the spectacular Golden and Silver Falls State Park, two large waterfalls a short walk from each other. Also part of the Coast Range is the Old Coos Bay Wagon Road, a pioneer wagon road in close to its original condition, passing completely through the Coast Range with remarkable scenery. Twenty miles to the south Bandon has sea spires rising from a superb beach. You can enjoy all of this knowing that the summer weather — May through September — is absolutely reliable, with temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees and nearly no rain (or even overcast).