Lincoln County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Lincoln County

Eight hundred feet straight up from the Pacific surf, Cape Perpetua holds the highest paved viewpoint on the entire Oregon Coast — a Siuslaw National Forest-managed scenic area with a 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps stone observation shelter (the West Shelter) that survived the 2017 Cascadia complex wildfires intact, and a USFS visitor center that interprets the volcanic seamount that the cape originated as some 35 million years ago. The cape's name comes from Captain James Cook, who sighted the headland on St. Perpetua's day (7 March 1778) during his third voyage. Lincoln County wraps 70 miles of Pacific coastline including Newport (population 10,256, home of the Hatfield Marine Science Center, the Oregon Coast Aquarium where Keiko of Free Willy was rehabilitated 1996-1998, and the 1936 Yaquina Bay Bridge designed by Conde McCullough — one of five major McCullough-designed Coast Highway bridges that together form a National Register Historic District).

Depoe Bay's 6-acre inner harbor is regularly cited as the world's smallest navigable harbor; the harbor channel is just 50 ft wide at the rock-cut entrance from the open Pacific, and resident gray whales feed inside the cove from March through October per Oregon State Parks Whale Watch Center data. Devils Lake State Recreation Area in Lincoln City accepts rigs to 60 ft with full hookups across 87 sites — the largest state-park RV-friendly base on the central Oregon coast, reservation through Oregon State Parks 9 months ahead. Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area (BLM-managed) preserves the 93-ft Yaquina Head Lighthouse (1873, the tallest on the Oregon coast). The coast highway US-101 is the spine; lateral access to the Coast Range and the Willamette Valley is via OR-18 and OR-34.