Lewis and Clark Salt Works

From their winter quarters at Fort Clatsop, the expedition sent out a detachment in late December 1805 to find a good place to make salt. On the first day of 1806 the men settled on this beach, close to fresh water and driftwood for fuel and to Native villages that could help feed them. They built a furnace of stones set with five kettles and got to work.

It was miserable, patient labor. For roughly seven weeks a rotating crew gathered seawater, let it settle, and kept it boiling day and night through the cold coastal rain, cooking off the water until only salt remained. Three men, Joseph Field, William Bratton, and George Gibson, did most of the tending. By the time they broke camp on February 20, 1806, they had produced about three and a half bushels of salt, which Captain Lewis pronounced excellent, fine, strong, and white.

The saltmakers did not survive that winter alone. They were guests in the homeland of the Clatsop people and their coastal neighbors, who lived along these estuaries and beaches, and who traded food and knowledge with the newcomers throughout the expedition's stay. The camp on the beach existed at the sufferance and with the help of the people who had lived here for countless generations.

That connection is also how the site was remembered. The precise spot might have been lost for good, except that a Clatsop woman named Jenny Michel, born in 1816, carried the knowledge of where the salt cairn had stood, and her testimony, together with the old rockpile itself, is what let later generations mark the place. The Clatsop and their descendants are still part of this coast, not a closed chapter of it.

After the expedition left, the salt works was forgotten for the better part of a century, its stones settling into the sand as Seaside grew up around it. In 1900 the Oregon Historical Society reestablished the site, guided by Jenny Michel's account and the surviving pile of rocks, and reconstructed the low stone cairn you see today.

It is now part of Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, whose pieces are scattered around the mouth of the Columbia. A ranger sometimes appears in period dress in summer, but most of the year it is just the cairn, the fence, and the sound of the surf a block away, which is somehow fitting for a place that was always more about grit than grandeur.

Set your expectations right and the salt works is a small delight. It takes only a few minutes to see, so the move is to walk over from the beachfront, read the marker, and let the imagination do the rest: five soaked men, a smoking furnace, and the endless gray Pacific that had been their goal.

Then make a loop of the history. Fort Clatsop, a short drive north, is the reconstructed fort where the expedition spent that rainy winter, linked to this beach by the old salt trail the men walked. Seaside itself marks the western terminus of the Lewis and Clark Trail, with a statue of the captains at the beachfront turnaround, so a single morning can trace the very end of their journey to the sea.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is a place we chose through independent editorial review, never a paid placement.

It marks the spot in what is now Seaside where members of the Lewis and Clark expedition made salt during the winter of 1806. While the Corps of Discovery wintered nearby at Fort Clatsop, a small crew came to the beach here and boiled seawater in kettles over a stone furnace for weeks to produce salt, which was essential for preserving food on the long journey home. A reconstructed cairn now marks the site.

It is a small, quiet historic site: a reconstructed stone furnace, or cairn, with kettles, set behind a low fence with interpretive signs telling the story. It sits right in a residential Seaside neighborhood a short walk from the beach and promenade, so it is a quick but meaningful stop rather than a large attraction. It is free to visit and open at any time.

By the time the expedition reached the Pacific and settled in for the winter, they had run out of salt, which before refrigeration was vital for preserving the meat they would need for the return trip east. So they scouted the coast, chose this spot near fresh seawater and a friendly Native village, and spent nearly fifty days boiling seawater day and night to make it. The effort speaks to how hard survival was on the expedition.

The site itself takes only a few minutes to see and read about, so most people combine it with other Seaside sights. It is steps from the beach and the town's famous Promenade, and it pairs naturally with a visit to Fort Clatsop, the reconstructed winter fort a short drive away, to understand the whole chapter of the expedition's coastal stay.

You can stop by any time year-round, but two moments stand out. Visiting in the damp chill of winter helps you imagine the smoky, soggy conditions the salt makers endured. And in the fall, a living-history event in Seaside brings costumed interpreters to the beach to recreate the salt-making process over open fires, a memorable way to see the history come alive.