Fort Stevens State Park has a really nice network of paved paths with a short section of trail. We camped in the park and took one morning to ride around and explore. This was more of a meandering ride that anyone could do.
For thousands of years the Clatsop Indians lived here. In 1851 the Clatsop Tribe signed a treaty in 1851 ceding their land and were guaranteed the right to fish and hunt indefinitely. Ultimately, though, they were fenced out and forced to leave. The Clatsop Tribe’s treaty ensuring them the right to fish and hunt was never ratified by Congress, so tribal members never got what they were promised. And as white settlers moved in, the Clatsop weren’t able to return to their homeland. Over the last two decades, the North Coast Land Conservancy has protected that 18.6 acres of property from development and restored its tidal marsh ecosystem.
Katie Voelke, the conservancy’s executive director, said after years of talking with tribal members about their desire to own some of their ancestral land, her organization made the historic decision to deed its portion of the former village site back to the tribes. Finally, the land trust deeded the 18.6 acres to the Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes.
After the US took the land, Fort Stevens was built on the coast. Fort Stevens was an American military installation that guarded the mouth of the Columbia River. Built near the end of the Civil War, it was named for Civil War general and former Washington Territory governor, Isaac I. Stevens. There is a lot to see at the fort still, as our pictures will show.
Leave a Reply