South Bend (Washington)

South Bend is a city in Pacific County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the administrative seat of the county and had at the 2000 census, just 1,807 inhabitants. The town lies at the mouth of the Willapa River in the Willapa Bay and describes himself as Oyster Capital of the World ( " oyster capital of the world" ).

History

Early History

The lower Willapa River has early signs of settlement. In historical times here settled the Willapa Chinook (also Shoalwater Chinook ) in several villages on the river, one of which stood where today is South Bend. After Edward Curtis stated Tshélso what, small, sandy place means'.

A short portage separated the Willapa Bay from the larger Chinook villages along the Columbia River. In addition, Lower Chehalis came from the north, which had close relations with the Chinook.

Chinook and Lower Chehalis worked with white Americans together the oyster catcher. They sold their catch in San Francisco. The territorial governor Isaac Stevens negotiated in February 1855 Quinault, Queet, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Shoalwater Bay, Chinook and Cowlitz Chehalis River Treaty Council the so-called (today Cosmopolis ). However, they refused to move to a reserve.

Reserve

Although there was no contract of assignment of their territories in the sequence, urged settlers to the Willapa River. In order to secure the Indians country, prompted the September 22, 1866 President Andrew Johnson to set up a reserve, namely the Shoalwater Bay Tribes Reservation. However, they included only 335 acres in Tokeland for Lower Chehalis and Willapa Chinook, who lived at the Willapa Bay. However, many of them are not attracted to the reservation but continued to follow their annual migration cycle.

White settlers

The first white settlers in South Bend came almost immediately after the establishment of the reserve. The Lower Chinook and Lower Chehalis which remained at the Willapa Bay, some moved into the Shoalwater Bay Tribe Indian Reservation in Tokeland, but most of them moved before it, not to live in the reserve.

With the relevant laws in the back always occupied, new settlers the land (Donation Land Act and Homestead Act ). Apart from land and livestock quick profits lured from logging in Temperate rainforest. Giant Trees of Life, Douglas fir and western hemlock American still covered about 90 % of the country. The residents identified recently as the 1870s, mostly as a farmer or oyster men. There were employment opportunities at the mill of John and Valentine S. Riddell, which was created in 1868 on the site of today's Helen Davis Park.

The first school was built on Nob Hill, west of the mill, in 1875, as well as the first post. The place got its name after a big knee or bend (bend) in the Willapa River.

Steamboats, industrialization, railroad connection

1875 took a first steam boat on its operation at the Willapa Bay. From 1889 you could go to Ilwaco Navigation Company with the Ilwaco Railroad and Steam.

1881 first salmon was processed industrially, 1887, the Reeves brothers opened a cannery on the north bank of the river, a closer look at The Narrows, at the upper end of the eponymous river knee.

1889 founded the capitalists South Bend Land Company. They acquired about 2000 acres of land. They said to one part of the country of the Northern Pacific Railway against guarantees that South Bend with the railroad Tacoma - is connected Portland. On April 1, 1890 Country was sold for $ 70,000 in a single day. Between 1889 and 1894 the population grew from 150 to 3,500.

Collection to the city, canal, highway connection

Already on September 9, 1890, the city was incorporated, the first mayor was George U. Holcomb of the South Bend Land Company. 1893 a shortened link to the railway network, but the seat of the county was still in Oysterville on the Long Beach Peninsula. Although the decision came out in favor of South Bend to Oysterville, files and seal out refused zurücken. Then drove two boats full of men in the village and brought them forcibly.

Despite these successes, the land prices began to fall, as well as the tax estimate, which fell from 2.5 million in 1891 to 1.7 million the following year. The panic of 1893 caused the economy stand still, 1895 the estimate stood at only $ 414,320. Symptomatic of the hotel Willapa, the recently ' erected by the orthern Land and Development Company 400 - room hotel. It was never opened, and had to be demolished in 1919. '

The Army Corps of Engineers dug a canal from the Willapa Bay to Willapa City above South Bend. Ships were now able to carry passengers and goods on a large scale. This added to the particular logging. In particular, the reconstruction of San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906 led to a widespread clearcutting. South Bend had at least 3,000 inhabitants yet. The crab fishing took on significant proportions. However, in 1912 dominated the wood industry,. A daily output of one million shingles per day 1910-11 was a new courthouse. Diess Pacific County Courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The land of the railroad, however, posed a hurdle, since then no new industries could settle. 1928 was the Port of Willapa Harbor between Raymond and South Bend. This also promoted the removal of large tree trunks. 1930 Highway 101 was opened, which linked in this section Aberdeen and Raymond - South Bend. Thus South Bend received at the same time access to the ferries across the Columbia River to Astoria.

Great Depression

In late 1929, after the stock market crash, set the saw mills abruptly her work - until the summer of 1933, the first re-opened. Only County, the school and the oyster -catcher offered employment. Lack of money in circulation printed the South Bend Merchants' Association their own money, which one years had already ventured Raymond's Commercial Club. The so-called wooden money ( wooden money) could be exchanged for the government coupons. In February 1934, the South Bend Merchants' Association once again brought out of money, but this time printed on paper. It dissolved, once wet, but quickly, and it was very brittle.

End of logging, tourism

1931 bought the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company several sawmills. They worked so efficiently that one end of the forests was predicted already in the 50s. The last sawmill in South Bend closed in 1953, bringing the oyster industry was the last industry of the place. The import of Atlantic oysters was a failure, then came Japanese (Crassostrea gigas ), which called not more Japanese during the war, but Pacific oysters. The first of them had already been introduced in the 20s. This was due in substantial that the Willapa Bay, unlike most American beaches on the Pacific coast, offered very clean water. This fact and the remaining forests, together with a rich bird population, increasingly attracted tourists to the region. The sustained by the Audubon Society Birding Trail of Southwest Washington leads her to Helen Davis Park. In addition, the track bed of the Northern Pacific was rehabilitated and now forms the Willapa Hills Trail.