Transcript

Sire Pro – Coos History Museum

I think there’s one interesting story that just tells people how much lumber was a thing here And that’s myrtlewood. It’s this really like. Unique spindly wood that we have here on the South Coast, it’s super plentiful. And so obviously during the Great Depression, money was scarce and wood here wasn’t, and people here had that thought of like, what if we just print more money?

And they literally did. And they made them out of Myrtlewood. So we had these myrtlewood coins that ranged from 25 cents to $10 and they. Were legal because the whole plan was the bank minted them and you would just trade them in for cash at the end of the depression and they would still act as currency during the depression itself.

The problem was after the depression, the banks called back the Myrtlewood money. And everybody was like, no, this is cool. We wanna keep it. And so, because they couldn’t recall all of it. Myrtlewood money is still legal tender in North Bend, Oregon to this day. And because of inflation, a Myrtlewood coin of like $10 would be worth like 200 now.

So they’re super valuable. We have tons of them at the museum and they’re like, you’ll see them floating around town sometimes, and it’s just cool to be reminded that like. Timber here was so huge that we actually made our money out of it. Whoa. Do you actually have one yourself? I don’t have one personally, but we do have a few on display and I have gotten to like, touch them and That is so cool.

Dirty Freehub

That is really cool. That’s a great story actually.

Sire Pro – Coos History Museum

I remember being so shocked by that when I moved here. Yeah. Yeah. That is amazing. that’s my favorite fact about our local timber industry. obviously our main resource here is lumber and has been for a long time.

And so when COOs Bay was officially established in the 1850s, lumber was kind of the focal point. And so it was not only a very important resource when it came to establishing our towns here in our communities in terms of actually building them and building industry, but it was also one of the main.

Forces that was drawing people towards COOs County in those early years, in the 1850s and onward because it was something that was familiar for people from not only all over North America and just the United States itself, but also for immigrants from other countries. So people from Scandinavia. People from Western Europe, people from the uk, people from parts of Asia were familiar with working in the lumber industry or the shipbuilding industries or things that kind of related to lumber in general.

having that familiarity was a big draw when it was you know, announced that COOs Bay was going to kind of be this big booming lumber capital.

Dirty Freehub

Was there like any key events or key people involved during this?

Sire Pro – Coos History Museum

Kind of the big ones that come to mind relate to ship building. So you have people like the Simpson family, which if you’ve ever been to COOs Bay, there’s a state park called Shore Acres that has a lot of really neat trails and, gardens and beaches and stuff. And that used to be the home of the Simpson Family Mansion and the Simpson family. I’m not sure exactly where they moved here from, but the Simpsons were ship building moguls in the region. And so they had a huge shipyard where they would build some of the largest ships built out of wood.

In the world at the time. And then also the largest ships built here in Coos County. Other people are like cruise and banks. Shipyard Cruise came from Scandinavia, was familiar with the Scandinavian shipbuilding industry and saw COOs Bay as an opportunity to really kind of stake himself as the one of the major people here within that industry.

So definitely Lots of big names. is there historical elements of that still, like viewable today? Yeah, so the Mansion at Shore Acres was it was taken over by the military during the Second World War. It also burnt down parts of it at some point.

A couple of the buildings are still standing today. There’s like an old radar bunker, one of their buildings is still visible in the garden, so you can actually still go visit it. But the site of the home is now a state park. There’s an observation deck where you can do whale watching and watch the big waves and stuff during storm season.

So it’s kind of flipped into a more, you know, natural and like appreciating the landscape itself rather than just a. A [00:05:00] mansion, which is pretty cool. But in terms of the actual like ship building shipyards, those don’t really exist here anymore. Yeah. That’s kind of a unique involvement of becoming from like a mansion to like a natural area.

You don’t Yeah. Right. Going like mansion to war. Yeah. To. State Park. Yeah that’s really cool.

Dirty Freehub

Are there any environmental challenges that are, have been associated with the timber industry specifically, like in the COOs Bay area? And if so, how are they addressed over time?

Sire Pro – Coos History Museum

As time’s gone on, there’s been a lot more deforestation locally than there was when the timber industry first started.

So we’ve seen a lot more restrictions with where and what type of trees you can chop down, which of course is being mitigated with like actual tree farms and federal regulations of where and what you can chop. But kind of one of the big scandals that. In a way was, depending on who you ask, one of the major contributing factors in kind of the decline of the timber industry was the northern spotted owl, which was listed on the endangered species list in the 1990s.

It was like listed as threatened, and they make their homes in trees. And so because of that, it like totally curtailed the logging industry in ancient forests here. So COOs Bay, Douglas County, COOs County, lots of loss of jobs here because people weren’t able to log anymore because we didn’t know where exactly that owl was.

So you either love or hate that owl if you live in COOs County. Kind of segwaying into that actually.

Dirty Freehub

How is that decline of the timber industry like affected the local economy and communities with the owl or without the owl? Yeah.

Sire Pro – Coos History Museum

Yeah. The owl, yeah. Such a scandal. But the local community is still very, like, lumber focused out of my window.

I can, like, there’s a Japanese woodchips carrier that’s getting, like, loaded with woodchips from our wood chip pile, so it’s still here. We’re still a major lumber exporter, but it looks different than it used to. So instead of being, used here for shipbuilding or for local logging, local manufacturing and stuff like that.

It’s being shipped off overseas to be made into paper or paper products and things like that. That’s kind of the big difference. Also, just a difference in what ships can fit into our bay anymore is a big constraint because it costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to dredge a bar. So if the bar is only 40 feet deep here, we can only take ships that have a 40 foot draft.

So it’s like big tankers nowadays can’t really fit in here. Are there any efforts being made today to manage the forests? Yeah, absolutely. I know the Bureau of Land Management owns I’m not sure exactly the number, but they own a huge amount of the land around here. And then also local tribes own quite a bit of, forested land here in COOs County. So both of those entities work really hard to make sure that our forests are doing well. And I know that lately there’s been quite an increase in pine and fur trees here in COOs County. Basically just because they were asking a lot of people to cut down Christmas trees this year. So that’s always a good sign.

Dirty Freehub

And how does, like cos bay play a role in the, like Pacific Northwest area or in other Oregon timber towns?

Sire Pro – Coos History Museum

It’s the largest town on the coast, which I think is like a shock to a lot of people because it’s very rarely talked about, but it is the largest town on the coast.

We have combining COOs Bay and North Bend in COOs County, about 30,000 people who live here. And quite a few of those people still work for our local industries. Whether that’s like. Maritime maintenance and stuff. So we have a lot of like shipyards that maintain and repair ships in COOs County now.

So not necessarily build them, but maintain them. And then the fishing industries are huge here. And then of course the wood chip production and still lots of logging operations just deeper in our forests and not as noticeable in town anymore. That’s interesting. Yeah. I didn’t think about COO Bay being the biggest, I kind of forget about that a lot.

I know. Yeah. I always think like maybe Astoria or Newport, right. Or like those names that are more recognizable, but it’s like, it’s a big population difference.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you.