![]() Florence thrived, even though the sand dunes upon which the town was built demanded that riverside streets be built of wooden planks. The last cannery closed in 1919, but the logging business remained strong. ![]() Tugboats assisted oceangoing ships through the treacherous bar at the river mouth until jetties were built in 1909. By the time Florence (named, according to tradition, for a sign found among shipwreck debris) was incorporated in 1893, pioneer residents had already established an economy based upon salmon canneries and sawmills. When the first white settlers had arrived at the mouth of the Siuslaw River in 1876, they found local Indians still living in plank houses. Rumors of less-savory activities were rife. Saloons and poker rooms shared street frontage with greasy-spoon cafes and fishing-gear purveyors. The fishing fleet anchored within a stone’s throw of the nearby mill, 4½ miles from the river’s mouth. (Old-timers in the latter town still talk about a semi-legendary confrontation between a pool table and a drunken, chainsaw-wielding Newman.) But as recently as the 1960s, Florence fit the same mold.īay Street, hard by the Siuslaw, was not a part of town where any god-fearing man or woman would dawdle. The movie version of “Great Notion,” starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda, was shot on the Yaquina River, in the area of Newport and Toledo. ![]() “There’s at least a two-cord truckload of guys at every table,” wrote Kesey, “hollering and laughing and sucking down the beer.” “All up and down the coast,” Kesey wrote, “there are little towns like Wakonda … where weary men talk about hard times and trouble … ” Much of the social interaction of the book took place in a bar called the Snag, whose model may have been any of a half-dozen bars that once lined Bay Street. The Stamper family lived upriver from Wakonda, a town which - like Florence - was built around the fishing and timber industries. Oregon novelist Ken Kesey, who made his home in the Eugene area, may well have been writing about Florence in “Sometimes a Great Notion.” Many literary experts regard this book about a stubborn logging family, published in 1969, as his finest work. It also has a string of freshwater lakes separated from the Pacific Ocean by hundreds of square miles of shifting sand hills, as the northern gateway to Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.Īnd it has Old Town Florence, possibly the finest example of citizen-ignited urban revitalization on the entire coast. It has a rich history, and fierce waves are constantly washing the jetties at the mouth of the Siuslaw River. Astoria boasts more than 200 years of history at the mouth of the Columbia River.Īsk the same travelers about Florence, and their faces may well draw a blank.īut this town of 9,400, little more than four hours’ drive west of Bend, has some of the best features of all of those other communities, and then some. Depoe Bay has a keyhole harbor and waves that crash constantly against its rocky bluffs. ![]() Cannon Beach is a more refined arts community. Newport, for instance, has its working riverfront and several major tourist attractions. By John Gottberg Anderson for The BulletinįLORENCE - There are a handful of small towns on the Oregon Coast that, travelers might agree, have a certain quality setting them apart from others.
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