South Slough Reserve, Oregon

Cultural History

The shores of South Slough have been inhabited by human beings for thousands of years. Evidence of villages and smaller encampments is scattered throughout the slough, primarily in middens of shellfish remains. Ancient wooden fish weirs have been found in some areas and additional weir sites probably remain.

After Euro-American settlement, the original inhabitants were at first forbidden to own land and were physically deported from the area. Eventually, in the 1870's, a number of the original families were permitted to claim otherwise "undesirable" sites and many made new homes along South Slough or its tributaries.

Houses, barns, windmills, a school house and other structures were built in the coves and low hills of the South Slough watershed from the late 1800's until the 1920's, although settlement was never dense. Families supported themselves by logging and ranching cattle, sometimes on a very large scale. Transportation to and from slough homesteads was almost entirely by boat and dependent on favorable tides. A small coal mine was operated in the southern portion of the South Slough drainage during the 1920's.