CHERI BRUBAKER/YachatsNews.com
WALDPORT — Nine months after the city of Waldport acquired a state interpretive center and one day after Oregon Gov. Kate Brown lifted coronavirus restrictions, the Waldport Chamber of Commerce opened the doors Thursday to the area’s newest welcome center and museum.
The re-opening of the center at the south end of the Alsea Bay bridge is a partnership between the city, which has been acquiring and moving between buildings, and a revitalized chamber of commerce.
The city acquired the Historic Alsea Bay Interpretive Center from Oregon Department of Transportation for $1 last October during the pandemic closure.
It was then that Colleen Nickerson, founder and curator of the Waldport Heritage Museum, increased her lobbying efforts to relocate the museum to the space, a more visible location that would see more traffic. Her persistence and dedication paid off in December when the Alsi Historical and Genealogical Society’s Heritage Museum moved from its overlooked location at 320 N.E. Grant St. to the more prominent location in the interpretive center on U.S. Highway 101. The museum also became a city department, much like the library.
While the interpretive center was closed due to the pandemic, the Waldport Chamber of Commerce leased space at the corner of Highway 101 and Hemlock Street and opened its own visitor and business center.
The city is paying the chamber $22,000 a year to staff the lobby of the reopened center, money coming from lodging taxes paid by visitors using motels, campgrounds and vacation rentals. The chamber is advertising for a part-time volunteer coordinator to help staff both centers.
The new welcome center and museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays.
Every chamber’s primary objective is to support its members and the business community, said executive director Tom Fullmer. Now, the chamber has two locations from which to direct visitors to places to go, places to stay and professional services — all promoting Waldport.
“Our slogan, is, ‘Where the forest meets the sea.’ The community is really all of this,” he said during an open house preview Sunday, gesturing toward the ocean then towards town. “This core area, the beach, up the Alsea River to Tidewater — all the crabbing, all the fishing, the hiking trails, boating, kayaking — everyone around here.”
Chamber board member Jamie Michel stressed the need to promote businesses and others not along the Highway 101 corridor that are equally and deserving of attention, the port area, the downtown streets, and Tidewater.
Fullmer explained the Hemlock Street welcome center – open daily from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. — serves as a meeting place for locals as well as an inviting source of information for visitors. There’s a gift shop filled with items from local artists as well as Waldport merchandise, like mugs and t-shirts.
The two locations complement each other, Fullmer said, allowing the chamber to reach more of the increasing number of visitors making their way to Waldport.
Nickerson was clearly excited to reveal the museum exhibits in their new home. She collected the artifacts and created the exhibits, and now they can be displayed to accurately reflect the history of the area. As she spoke, Nickerson indicated the Native American artifacts, remnants of the first people of the Alsea Bay.
There is an aerial photograph from 1953 hanging on the wall. “This is what it was like when I was going to high school,” Nickerson said. The only houses were along the orderly grid of the streets downtown. Bayshore was simply an empty beach.
A photo from 1999 shows remarkable growth, but not Waldport currently. The museum would welcome a current aerial shot, she said.
Some of the exhibit materials have been donated, Nickerson said. Some were on loan, including her own family photographs. Her great grandparents homesteaded near Yachats. “Then grandpa married and moved up the Alsea River where mom and her four sisters were born,” she said.
Nickerson pointed out her grandma, her-great grandma. “I’ve got a lot of history growing up with everybody,” she said. “I know how important this place is to Waldport. Now people can find it without looking for it.”
