US COAST GUARD COMES TO OREGON

The Life-Saving Service had a long impact on the new Coast Guard in terms of drills and rescue organization for many years.  With even better equipment, helicopters, better boats, better training, the Coast Guard has continued to build on the service of their forebears in the Life-Saving Service serving the mariners of Oregon.

Now, life saving, falling into the category of search and rescue today, is an important function of the Coast Guard, especially along the coast of Oregon. But it is only one of many jobs tackled by the Coasties – smuggling interdiction, law enforcement, navigation aids are all some of the other many jobs the Coast Guard is entrusted with.

STATIONS BEYOND THE LIFE-SAVING SERVICE

The Coast Guard has added some newer stations to the Life-Saving list since the 1915 merger – Chetco River across from Brookings – 1961, Depoe Bay – 1940, Siuslaw River-Florence – 1917 and Port Orford – 1934, as well as a seasonal substation at Gold Beach.

They have also closed stations – Point Adams – 1967 and Port Orford – 1970.  In the case of Point Adams, those services are rendered from other nearby stations – Station Cape Disappointment is just across the Columbia River where the National Motor Lifeboat School is also located while nearby is the Coast Guard Air Station in Warrenton and two cutters call Astoria home port – the USCGC Alert and Steadfast.  Coos Bay is also nearby to the North Bend Air Station.

THE ROOSEVELT STATIONS

“Roosevelt” designed stations get their name for their construction during the long administration years of Franklin Roosevelt. The design – rectangular, two-story, Colonial aspects, possible square watchtower atop – was incorporated into many – 43 – Coast Guard stations along both coasts in the 1930-1940 time frames. The Coast Guard erected four of these type on the Oregon Coast – one in Washington and two in California.

POINT ADAMS

The Life-Saving Service set up a station on the Oregon side of the mouth of the Columbia River in 1889. An earlier station on the Washington side – Cape Disappointment – was simply not enough to account for large amount of work. Accidents on the south approach to the river mouth and along the southern channels were also too far to reach.

River erosion forced a move back from the shore – further dredging has increased the distance to the water. With the added responsibilities of the new Coast Guard, the station was too small and outdated. In 1938, an entirely new station erected by the Public Works Administration went up with an ability to sleep 17 sailors.

Along with a new station, a new boathouse was added out in the river. As you can see from the picture, the new station went up right behind the old one so the men at the station could continue their work.

The station served the Coast Guard until 1967 when it was decided to concentrate back over to Cape Disappointment once more, since faster boats were now able to serve the entire mouth of the river now.

Today, the old station serves the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a research station for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Much of the old building survives as it was during its Coast Guard years. The old boathouse from 1889 still intact though without its distinctive ventilator on top of the roof.

tillamook bay

The Barview station was the last to be built during the period of the Life-Saving Service years. Built close to the mouth of the bay, boats could be rowed either directly into the mouth for work around the bay’s bar. They could also be carted over to the beach for work needed there.

With the advent of the new motorized lifeboats, especially the 36-footer, the Coast Guard decided to move the station further east to the town of Garibaldi, enlarging the station at the same time, in 1943.

A few years before the new station was built, a boathouse was built out into the bay. That boathouse served the station until a new one replaced it in 1982. The old boathouse has been turned into a museum by a local group.

Station Tillamook Bay is an ongoing station today served by around 40 Coast Guardsmen. There are a couple of 47-foot lifeboats working from here along with several other smaller vessels.

yaquina bay

The Life-Saving station moved about over time before settling into its present sit at the edge of Yaquina Bay on the west end of the busy Bayfront district. When first established in 1896 on South Beach, the men moved next to the site of the old Yaquina Bay Lighthouse in 1906. Even after the Life-Saving Service became part of the Coast Guard, the lighthouse remained as station house for the crew.

The original boathouse on the beach moved to the south shore of the bay serving as the main boathouse. A fire in 1930 destroyed both the boathouse and boats stored inside.

After the fire, the Coast Guard decided to build a new station – 1932 – on the bay built out on pilings over the bay for easy access to a new boathouse. The new lookout next to the old lighthouse also went up in 1936, still operating today. On 2 January 1944, the ‘new’ station house burned.

The new station went up a few years later in 1948 with a barracks building replacing an equipment building in the 1980’s. Technically, Roosevelt was dead, but the architecture still resembles the other stations of the earlier period. A new boathouse went up built on pilings in front of the new station. The boathouse needed rebuilding after being crushed by a ship in 1979.

Yaquina Bay Station serves almost 50 sailors. In addition to the pair of 47-foot lifeboats, one of only four 52-foot vessel boats – the Victory – stations here. These boats have a larger reach of service and a much larger towing ability than the more numerous 47-footers, but the original design, wooden-hulled instead of the steel-hulled versions of the present four, did not have self-righting capability of the newer boats. The 52-foot boats are also 60 plus years old. A couple of videos from the station’s Facebook page to do their service justice.

UPDATE – the four 52-footers are being retired finally. The four have been gathered at Cape Disappointment before being taken out of the water. They had been restricted in their duties as of 1 October 2020 due to safety and maintenance problems. It is hard to find replacement parts after 60 years. 47-footers are taking up the slack, especially with new upgrades aimed at increasing the life of these 1990-designed boats for another twenty years of service. The Coast Guard has yet to decide on the future of the 52-footers other than to take them out of the water. Maritime museums in the area are hoping to get new displays in the near future.

The Triumph II replaced an earlier 52-footer – one of the two wooden original 52-footers built from even earlier designs (1936) – which sank during a rescue operation off the mouth of the Columbia 12 Jan 1961. Five of the six crewmen were lost. The Triumph I and II operated out of Point Adams until that station closed when the II moved across the river to Cape Disappointment. The other wooden 52-foot original, the Invincible I, also suffered a roll over though it survived. She was replaced by a steel-hulled version in 1960.

There is an air station with two H-65 Dolphin helicopters working out of Newport, as well. The station scheduled for closure in 2016, but politicians have kept it alive to save lives.

depoe bay

Originally, the “world’s smallest harbor” held only an auxiliary station to Newport Lifeboat station in 1940. Increased amounts of work shifted the station to a full-time location in 1949. Serving the harbor are two 47-footers and one 25-foot Response Boat with around 30 sailors.

umpqua river

The Lifeboat Station here dates to 1891. The first Life-Saving Station was established on the north bank of the bay near where the old army Fort Umpqua, which lay by then, buried in the sands. That station lasted until 1939, well into the Coast Guard years. A new Roosevelt station went up next to the lighthouse on the south shore. Next to the large station house is an equally large equipment house. The boathouse was almost a mile to the north. Extending out into the river on pilings, the house gone today, burnt in 1966 and overtaken by the large dredged areas of Winchester Bay.

The Coast Guard moved out of the Roosevelt station in 1968 over to their present base in Salmon Harbor – Winchester Bay, adjacent to the present boathouse. The old station taken over by Douglas County which runs a museum devoted to the Life-Saving Service-Coast Guard, the lighthouse and the local region. Tours operated out of the old Equipment building which sees new life as a gift and sandwich shop. An art gallery is on the north end of the old Station, as well.

siuslaw river

The mouth of the Siuslaw River gained a Lifeboat station in 1917 after a couple of accidents occurred. In 1982, the station saw extensively remodeling with only the equipment building and its four dormers surviving modernity. The station is a subunit of the Umpqua River Station.

coos bay

Coos Bay was Oregon’s first Life-Saving Station – 1878 – though it was not much of one. There was one man – the Keeper – who stayed in his boathouse erected on pilings in a cove below the Cape Arago Lighthouse. The one-man show lasted until a proper station went up in 1891 on the North Spit. That station lasted until one year into the Coast Guard years – 1916.

The North Jetty completed in 1901, but not until 1928 did the South Jetty get finished. At the same time, with the channel dredged from an earlier bar depth of only 11 feet, the crossing became considerably safer.

A new station came into being in 1916, moving across the bay again to the west edge of Charleston on the entrance of the South Slough into the bay. This, one of the first stations built by the new Coast Guard in Oregon. The crew barracks and keeper’s house from this period all survive, though not on the same site. They have moved further south of their old location, a part of the University of Oregon’s Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. The boathouse also survives and in the original site. The house transformed into a lecture hall.

New housing – 1968-1970 – for Coast Guard families occupies the old site of the station – OIMB is further south. A new Coast Guard station went up in Charleston Harbor with an adjacent boathouse.

UPDATE – A 52-foot motor lifeboat, the MLB Intrepid recently left Charleston to reunite with the other three 52-footers at Cape Disappointment before they are all taken out of the water for retirement. The Intrepid had served on duty since 1963 at Coos Bay.

coquille river

The Coquille Life-Saving Station dated to 1889. Sitting on a hill overlooking the southern banks of the mouth of the Coquille River, the station lasted well into Coast Guard years before a fire in 1936 devastated the town of Bandon.

Four years later, a large Coast Guard station was erected closer to the river.  The station fulfilled many other needs beyond the basics of the lifeboats. It was the most expensive of the Roosevelt buildings to go up in Oregon.

During World War II, the building was the scene of much activity as the Navy moved in, as well.

Today, there is only a seasonal – May-September weekend – Coast Guard search and rescue presence with most of the building being used by the local Port of Bandon.

port orford

Port Orford always had dreams of being the main port through which the commerce of southern Oregon and northern California would flow. It did not work out that way. Cape Blanco is Oregon’s oldest continually running light dating to 1870. It took another 64 years before a Lifeboat Station was erected on Orford Head just west of the unique harbor of Port Orford.

So, 1934 should qualify as a Roosevelt Coast Guard station, but while sharing some characteristics with the other Oregon stations, Port Orford is considered a one the only “Forge River-design” left on the West Coast, one of 30 some such stations on both coasts. Colonial decoration, seen in earlier designs and definitely on Roosevelt-style designs, is at a minimum here.

There were two stories with an attic. A watchtower was built through the woods further to the south. A trail goes there today, but only foundation stones remain from the tower.

A 280-foot descent – and ascent – of 532 stairs (some stairs are not safe to walk on or are non-existent towards the bottom) lead from the Port Orford Lifeboat Station down to Nellies Cove. Remnants of the two-bay boathouse are visible from above. Also, a breakwater built out to rocks in the middle of the cove to slow wave action responsible for damaging the boathouse early on.

1970 saw the station decommissioned. After a few years of use by Oregon State University for marine research, the station became a state park with a local group providing tours of the station from May through September. A restored 36-foot lifeboat sits undercover just outside the old station. The Keeper’s house is on the north side of the station house.

chetco river

The last Lifeboat Station in Oregon is in Harbor, the little town where the harbor for the town of Brookings exists. This is the newest of the Lifeboat stations only dating to its inception in 1961. Chetco Harbor serves the southern Oregon Coast up towards Coos Bay. They maintain a seasonal search and rescue unit on the mouth of the Rogue River at Gold Beach. There are thirty plus sailors working here in a modern station with adjacent boathouse on the Chetco River.

OTHER COAST GUARD ASSETS ALONG THE OREGON COAST

Most of the large Coast Guard cutters operate either out of Washington or California, but two 210-foot Medium Endurance cutters – the Steadfast and the Alert – work from docks next to the Columbia River Historical Museum in Astoria. These two cutters belong to the Reliance class and have served for over fifty years. The ships can serve at sea for 6 to 8 weeks with 75 man complements. They are scheduled for replacement with a new medium class of cutter in the near future.

Astoria is slated for two new 154-foot Sentinel class Fast Response boats. They will take over the cruising regions of the present Island class 110-foot Orcas stationed in the harbor of Coos Bay. Their berths in Astoria not yet decided.

Until the Sentinels reach their new port, the Orcas continues out of Coos Bay.

Astoria also is home to a sea-going buoy tender, the 225-foot Elm. The Elm, stationed on Tongue Point just east of Astoria, replaced two earlier Firs in 2019.

The Elm is responsible for maintaining navigation aids from the California to Canadian border. With several machine guns mounted aboard, the ship thus officially a warship with its 75 man complement.

AVIATION

Two Coast Guard Air Stations along the Oregon Coast help aid their seagoing brethren. there are three MH-60T Jayhawks helicopters working out of the Astoria Air Station – along with 67 men.

In the south five MH 65 C/D Dolphin helicopters serve from the North Bend Air Station with 153 men.

A Coast Guard Air Station in Newport scheduled for decommissioning in 2016 but saved by politicians. Two Dolphins operate here covering the central Oregon coast.

SOURCES

To learn more about the Life-Saving Services and their continued work as part of the Coast Guard, you really need to start with David Pinyerd’s master thesis from the University of Oregon which he has put online, The Preservation of Pre-World War II Coast Guard Architecture in Oregon. He also authored one of the Arcadia Publishing volumes from their popular Images of America series, Lighthouses and Life-Saving on the Oregon Coast.

The US Coast Guard History site and the Facebook sites of the different stations along the coast oos baymakalong with a coe for greater understanding of the past and present challenges of the Coast Guard – Cape Disappointment, National Motor Lifeboat School, Tillamook Bay, Depoe Bay, Yaquina Bay, Siuslaw River, Umpqua River, Chetco River, North Bend sector, Columbia River sector and Portland.

Several articles have been cited from the Oregon Encyclopedia efforts operated by the Oregon Historical Society – Washington has a similar effort entitled Historylink.

Lots of information found on the Lighthouse Friends website and the US Life-Saving Service Heritage Association website, too.