On the banks of Oregon's Willamette River, hidden among the trees at river mile 30.7,
is a forgotten remnant of the past. The place is Coalca Landing, a small nature preserve
that's been abandoned for several years. Ever since I learned of this
park's existence, I've been trying to figure out when
and why it closed. Information has been hard to come by, but I've finally been able to piece
together enough of the story to give us a good idea
of what happened here. A couple years ago
I was looking at Google Maps in the greater Portland metro area,
specifically between Canby and Oregon City. Route 99 East follows the river here for
about seven miles between the two cities. And while it's a nice drive, there's
not much of anything on this route. However, I happened to notice
something called Coalca Landing State Park. I had no idea we had a state park here, But even more strangely, it was
marked as "permanently closed." This obviously piqued my curiosity, and I tried doing some simple
online searches for the park. But I quickly learned that there's very
little evidence that this place ever existed. No page on the State Parks website. No mention on old maps. As I started to read people's blogs and
forum posts, it only raised more questions. The park was a curiosity even a
decade ago when it was still open, and then it seemingly faded away
without any explanation. I've been researching this topic
on and off for the last year, hitting multiple dead ends and even
giving up on the project more than once. But today I can finally share with
you the story of Coalca Landing, First exploring its history, and then
figuring out where it all went wrong. To understand the history of Coalca Landing, we actually have to look at the steep
cliff across the highway. It's all but forgotten now, but there's a unique rock formation
on this cliff called Coalca's Pillar, sometimes referred to as Balancing Rock. The name Coalca came from
the native Molalla peoples, who used the rock as a visual
landmark along the river. They had their own legend surrounding it,
but as you might expect, multiple versions of the story
were printed over the years. One of the earliest examples was
featured in Sunset Magazine in 1900. To summarize: Coalca was the
young chief of the Molalla tribe. He was in love with Nawalla, a woman
from the neighboring Clackamas tribe. He was so desperate to have her that he snuck
into their camp at night and kidnapped her. War broke out between the two tribes,
and Nawalla died of a broken heart. Coalca was driven off the cliff,
and the Great Spirit punished him by turning him into a pillar of stone. A decade later in 1910,
the Oregon Daily Journal described the scenic beauty of
the area itself, saying quote: "The trip south along the Southern
Pacific Railroad to Coalca, three or four miles distant
from Oregon city, is a great favorite with hiking
parties from Oregon City." "The walk leads one along the banks
of the ever beautiful Willamette through an attractive bit of woods." "Arriving at Coalca, a small
railroad station, one is confronted on the east side by frowning cliffs,
100 feet or more in height." "And it is at the top, and at the
brink of the highest of these that Coalca's Pillar, or the Devil's
Fotstool, as it is sometimes called, stands out prominently." The pillar was a popular local landmark
through the first half of the 20th century. While it was never a part of what would
eventually become Coalca Landing, the pillar almost got a small state
park of its own. I found a couple newspaper
articles from June of 1950 that said the state had taken ownership
of the cliffside and locals were eager for it
to be turned into a park. One of the most helpful resources
I found, a blog called Cyclotram, gives some additional context to this. It says: "This rock was once a big local
tourist attraction back in the days when 99E was the main road
into Portland from point south." "Back then, the area had been logged
relatively recently and trees were smaller, so rock formations
like this were easier to spot." "The state bought the land in June 1950
when Highway 99E was being widened." "...the state considered putting in a
highway wayside near the pillar, but that seems to have
never come to pass." This is pretty interesting, as it reminds us that this was at a time
before the interstates were built. Route 99 was the most
prominent road in the state, and a great number of drivers were
passing through Coalca on a daily basis. I do think the roadside attraction could've
been pretty popular at the time. But the idea never panned out, and Coalca's Pillar has faded
into obscurity in the years since. It's very difficult to see
from the highway today, and there's no official
way of hiking up to see it. Now, the spot on the riverbank that would
eventually become Coalca Landing itself, was developed by the Doernbecher
Manufacturing Company in 1900. Through the early 20th century they
would become one of the largest industrial companies in Portland. And for a time, they were one of the largest
furniture makers in the United States. In fact, Doernbecher's main plant
in Portland is still standing today, situated near I-84 and now being used
as a self-storage facility. Doernbecher chose to build its sawmill
about 15 miles south at.Coalca. This put it closer to some of the local
logging operations along the river. 1900 was also the year that the Southern Pacific
Railroad chose to build a train depot here. As far as I can tell, this was largely
meant to serve the sawmill workers. But it's possible there may have already
been some people living here as well. And the rail route itself had been
around for decades at this point. And in fact, it was actually the first
one to be built into Portland. Back in 1869, the Oregon Central Railroad
had built its first 20 miles of track between Portland and the small community
of New Era, less than a mile south of Coalca. In the coming years, the line was extended
all the way to California. And it would eventually become
Southern Pacific's Shasta Route between Portland and San Francisco. The Coalca Depot was
one of the many smaller stops on the Shasta Route
through the early 20th century. I've looked through several
of their timetables from this era, and it seems that Coalca
only appeared a few times, specifically in the early to mid-1920s. Today the rail line is owned by
Union Pacific and remains very active, but any traces of the depot are long gone. The Doernbecher sawmill is another story. Photo shows several small concrete
structures strewn across the park. It's believed that
these are remnants of the sawmill, which would make them over 120 years old After operating for more than 50 years, the sawmill was permanently
closed in December of 1954, when the Doernbecher Company
shut its doors for good. The site was purchased
in the following month by two logging industry veterans named
R.B. Reynolds and J.D. Coleman. About a year and a half later
in September of 1956, they sold it to the
Publishers Paper Company. Publishers was one of the big
players in the local paper industry, and they had numerous mills
spread across Oregon. They were reportedly going to use
the Coalca property for decking logs. An article at the time described
the property, saying quote: "There is 2,500 feet of river frontage
on its blacktopped area adjacent to the main line of
the Southern Pacific Railroad." "Only empty buildings are on the site..." So to me, this suggests that the sawmill was never reopened
after Doernbecher shut its doors. It seems that the machinery was sold off
and the buildings were left abandoned. Since Publishers Paper was basically going
to use the site as a storage area for logs, they may have demolished the remaining
buildings to make more space. But that's really just my best guess,
as this is the last record I could find of any industrial
use of the property. Let's fast forward a
few years to the 1960s. By this point, the environmental movement
was starting to put more of a spotlight on the need to preserve
Oregon's natural beauty. This came to a head in 1966, when
Robert Straub and Tom McCall were campaigning against each
other for the governor's seat. Straub put forth a radical idea for a project
called the Willamette River Greenway. The idea was that the state
would acquire the land along the entire length of the Willamette River,
from Springfield to Portland. This would create a continuous public
park nearly 200 miles in length. Straub would ultimately lose
the election to Tom McCall. But McCall was an environmentalist himself, and he supported Straub's
vision for the Greenway. He took it upon himself
to put the plan into action. And over the next several years, the state tried
to acquire as much of the land as possible. This turned out to be extremely
controversial with local farmers. And by the time Robert Straub
became governor in 1975, it was clear his original vision
would never be realized. But in the process,
the state had acquired a patchwork of nearly 90 parcels of land
along the river. Some of these would be developed
into fully fledged state parks, like Willamette Mission
State Park north of Salem, and Molalla River State Park, just
a few miles upriver from Coalca. However, most of the properties
would remain within the smaller Willamette Greenway system. Now, I want to spend a minute here to clarify the difference
between the two categories. The state parks are more widely known and are typically larger
and feature more amenities for guests. This includes things
like hiking trails, campgrounds, parking lots, restroom facilities,
picnic areas, and boat ramps. By comparison, most of the
Greenway parks are much smaller and have minimal accommodations. Oregon Parks & Rec describes them as,
quote: "...low key open spaces." "A few have boat launches and
vault toilets, and others — nothing." In other words, the Greenway
parks are generally lesser known, and are not designed
for high visitor traffic. This fits the bill perfectly
for Coalca Landing, which was only about 15 acres
and barely had any services on site. Indeed, the park is still considered
a part of the Willamette Greenway today. So while it's accurate to call it a state
park in the general sense, it never technically fell into the State Parks
category that most people are familiar with. As far as when specifically
it was developed into a park, I haven't been able to dig up
any information. My best guess is that it happened
sometime in the mid-70s, when most of the land
acquisitions took place. For reference, let's take a look at
this aerial photo from 1975. It's hard to make any clear deductions
from this image, but it looks like this area is cleared out and there are very few
trees on the property. To me this indicates that the land
was either recently handed over from its industrial use, or it
was still actively being used. The next aerial photo I could find
is from two decades later in 1995. Thanks to the higher resolution,
we can see that most of the trees and other plant life
had grown back by this point . And this is actually more or less
how it still looks today. While I don't know
precisely when the park was established, I did manage to find a few articles
from the 1980s and 90s that alluded to its existence. In the summer of 1985, Portland mayor
Bud Clark made a publicized trip to Coalca to spend the day with the community's
honorary mayor, Roger Dale York. This article doesn't
mention the park specifically, but it does give us a glimpse
into the community at the time. Coalca was described as being home to
"12 full-time and 5 part-time residents." The article went on to say: "The unincorporated community is
located next to the Willamette River and in years gone by was a bustling
location with a large sawmill." This suggests that the industrial use of
the area was long gone by this point. There's also a brief mention of an "annual
Coalca Days picnic on Labor Day Sunday." Call it a hunch, but a public park
right in their backyard seems like the perfect place for this. In December of 1986,
improvements were announced for a variety of boating
facilities across the state. Among these, this article makes
the very brief statement: "Improve toilets at Coalca." The park was briefly mentioned again
in the summer of 1990. It was the meeting spot
for a summer workshop where blind children got a chance
to go water skiing on the river. In June of 1996. Oregon Parks and Recreation
announced that they would have to permanently close 64 parks
due to a lack of funding. These were slated to be closed
at the end of the summer. As you probably guessed, Coalca Landing
was listed among the parks slated for closure. I wondered whether this was the
beginning of the park's downfall. If so, it could suggest
that there were dozens of other abandoned parks
scattered across the state. But looking closer at the list, I knew that
several of these parks are still open today. Some of them I've even
visited myself fairly recently. I dug a little deeper into the story and learned that the closures
never actually ended up happening. The news was alarming to
politicians and voters alike, and new long-term funding was soon
found to keep the parks open. So if Coalca Landing wasn't the
victim of widespread closures in the mid-90s, what happened? The next event worth mentioning
took place in the early 2000s. The Willamette River Water Trail
was established, and designated the river as an official trail
for water-based recreation. This was dedicated in three sections
between 2005 and 2007. A document I found from 2007 provides guidelines for the
management of the river trail. This also includes write-ups
for every park along the trail. It says: "Coalca Landing has a gravel parking
area with fishing and swimming access." "It has a small picnic area with tables and
a garbage can, as well as a pit toilet." Believe it or not, these two sentences are the earliest description
I could find of the park itself, despite the fact that it was
something like 30 years old at this point. This page also provides
a convenient chart showing what the park did and didn't offer,
and it didn't offer much. There was no dock or boat ramp on site. Instead, visitors would take a short
walk down the riverbank to a small sand beach, where they
could launch their kayaks or canoes. There's also mention
of a dirt hiking trail. Since there's almost no maps that
acknowledge the park, period, finding a trail map is nearly impossible. But I did manage to find
one on OpenStreetMap. This shows it running
the length of the park, which I measured
to be about a half-mile long. Stepping forward a few years, Coalca Landing started to see a handful of mentions
online by locals. Flickr user Jayne Cravens posted
these two photos in 2011, and described the park
at the time, saying quote: "I can't find it on any maps." "I found the park because there is a tiny —
and I mean tiny — Oregon State Parks sign on Highway 99E at the driveway
that takes you to the park." "Everyone I asked about it
in Canby stared at me blankly and assured me there
was no park there." "A representative I met from
Oregon State Parks told me she had no idea what
I was talking about." This account is really fascinating to me. Even at this time when
the park was open, it was so obscure that people living just
within a few miles had no idea it existed. To be fair, I've driven past
it on the road myself, and even knowing exactly where it is,
it's very easy to miss. And just a note about the state
park sign on the highway, it seems to have been removed a few
years after this account was written. Now, there's a comment on Jayne's photo by
Flickr user usforestkeepers, who said, quote: "I am the volunteer park ranger at Coalca Landing." "Actually, this is what is called a satellite park." "Small and nearly forgotten, there
are a few of these around Oregon." I clicked on his username
just on a whim, and I'm glad I did. He has some of the best photo documentation
of the park that I've ever seen. In fact, a few of the photos I've been
showing are from his extensive collection. Now, to narrow down the time frame
of the park's closure, I've collected several separate pieces that
tell a story when they're all placed in order. To start off, Google's Street View
from September of 2012 shows the park gate open and
at least one car parked in the lot. Seven months later in April of 2013,
a Geocache was hidden in the park. In the user's description of the area,
this part stuck out to me. Quote: "There are 'no parking' signs at the entrance
and the gate to the parking lot is locked." "If you can find a way to get there,
the cache is there for the finding." This is the first account I could find
of the parking lot being closed. But then we have a video from three months
later in July, posted by YouTube user nightfoam. The parking lot is clearly open again
and there are cars parked here. Just a few weeks
after this video was posted, a commenter on Cyclotram's
blog post said, quote: "I stopped there for the first time
today on my way home from work to check out the fishing opportunities." "I like that the trail downstream takes
you right to the south end of Rock Island." "There is good fishing there. " So despite the park being closed in April, we have two accounts confirming
it was back open in July. Eight months later in March of 2014, the park was mentioned by a user
in the Oregon Hikers forums. He said, quote: "The local park by my
house, Coalca Landing, is still closed." "They closed it for the federal shutdown.
It's still closed with the same sign on the gate." He was referring to the shutdown
of the federal government that lasted for about two weeks
in October of 2013. National Parks across the country were
temporarily closed during this time. But to the best of my knowledge, federal shutdowns
don't impact locally managed parks. I actually do think Coalca Landing
closed at around that same time, but I believe the two events were unrelated. Two weeks after that forum post, the park's closure was confirmed again
by a forum user on ifish.net. Quote: "Coalca Park/Landing
is closed until further notice." "Just drove by there this morning.
Gate was locked up." This soon spawned its own separate
conversation, where another user said, quote: "Well, did the research myself and
the park is closed basically for good." So looking at this pattern, it might
not immediately make sense why the park would flip between
being open and closed. But here's my theory. The parking lot was open in the summer
of 2012, and was then closed during the off-season months
from late 2012 to early 2013. Other parks in this area have trails and
campsites that are only open seasonally. It's possible this had been applied
to Coalca Landing at some point. If so, the park would've
reopened around May, and then closed again
by around October. This is all relying on a bit of guesswork, but I think it's a plausible explanation. I haven't found any personal accounts
of the park after this point. So my theory is that the parking lot
closed permanently around October of 2013. As if this story wasn't convoluted enough,
it seems the parking lot closure wasn't the final nail in the
coffin for Coalca Landing. There's evidence that the park actually
remained open, potentially for several years. But from this point onward, it was only
publicly accessible from the river. Let's start by comparing these two photos of the park's main sign board
from 2011 and 2016. A few things were moved around,
but the most notable change was the addition of this
"motor vehicles prohibited" sign. This seems to confirm
that the park was converted to river access only at some
point in this time frame. Supporting this idea is this Google Street
View image, also from 2016, where the parking lot is locked up
and starting to show signs of overgrowth. Perhaps the best account of this was
writtena couple years later in 2018. Clackamas County had
contracted a study to analyze how its parks were being used
and where improvements could be made. The resulting document gave status updates on pretty much the entire river
through the county For Coalca Landing specifically, it says:
"Recently the road to this area has been closed and therefore the only access to
this site is by boat or on foot. While this prevents car top boats
from launching and taking out here, it does increase the opportunities for remote camping,
fishing, nature viewing, and picnicking. The final and most recent
piece of information is from 2021. A realtor's video shows some great drone
footage of the surrounding area. This is the most recent photography
we have of the park, and it gives us a clear view
of what the parking lot looks like today. The video also makes
this interesting statement: "This property is located by Coalca Landing,
a state park that is closed to the public and only available to be accessed
by this property or by the river." So the signs seem to point to the park
technically being open, but there's one sign
that's conspicuously missing. In the footage we can clearly see the
park's main sign board is no longer here. Earlier photos placed on the northwest
corner of the parking lot. But the fact that it's been removed could
suggest the park is now closed entirely. The only official acknowledgment
of the park online is on the Willamette River Trail website. This page doesn't tell us anything
we don't already know. But the fact that the park is shown
here would suggest that's still open. Then again, it also says the park has vehicle access,
which hasn't been true for several years. Given all these conflicting accounts, I decided
it was finally time to set the record straight. I reached out to the folks at Willamette
Riverkeeper, a nonprofit group that serves as one of the caretakers
of the river and its surrounding habitats. I asked if they could clarify
whether Coalca Landing is still publicly accessible from the river,
or whether it's closed entirely. I also asked if there might be any opportunity
to volunteer at the park to help rehabilitate it. In response to my questions, Willamette Riverkeeper
verified the answers with Oregon Parks & Recreation. They said, quote: "The site is definitely closed." "It has been that way for a few years." "It is one of those sites that Oregon Parks & Rec
had a hard time managing given its location." "Also, the river access was relatively steep." "Apparently there were some illegal activities
occurring there, and they decided to call it good." These details definitely shed
some new light on the whole situation, but at the same time,
they're not too surprising. We know the park was fairly well hidden,
and as a result, it seems to have suffered
from low attendance for years. The location eventually became a
problem for another reason, too. One of the forum posts from 2014
that I mentioned earlier made the additional comment that, quote: "Apparently the road crossing over the
train tracks was never technically legal." I actually wouldn't be surprised
if this were true, as the entrance to the parking lot
is basically part of a private driveway. The only way to remedy
this would be to build a completely new separate driveway
across the railroad tracks, which from a cost perspective alone
is probably not justifiable. I've actually always assumed that
Coalca Landing had some funding issues, and that seems plausible from my research. For example, Cyclotram makes
the comment that, quote: "The entire Greenway system has been
in a sort of political and financial limbo ever since the initial burst of enthusiasm
faded in the late 1970s." Oregon Parks & Rec has even
said itself in the past, quote: "Many parks that exist along
the Willamette River cannot adequately respond to growing
recreational needs because of a lack of funding to provide access facilities
and operational supervision." So presumably, due to a lack of funding,
the park couldn't be monitored very closely. This probably led to the unfortunate
side effect of vandalism or other illegal activities taking place. And on top of all this, it sounds like even
the river access was fairly inconvenient. Lugging your boat up a steep
and narrow trail isn't ideal. And the sand beach itself has also reportedly
been degraded over the years due to boat wakes. So this probably discouraged people
from accessing the park by the river, which had really become the only way
to get there in the first place. Also, just within a few miles you have three other public parks
equipped with full boat ramps. Most people probably
just figured it was easier to go to one of those spots instead. So with all these factors
considered together, Coalca Landing's closure
starts to make a lot more sense. And it certainly paints a much more
complex picture than I ever imagined. The closure of Coalca Landing is unfortunate, but I don't see it as a
failure on anyone's part. These situations are never as simple
as they appear on the surface. But even with all the factors
working against it, Coalca Landing could potentially make
a comeback someday in the future. In my correspondence with Willamette
Riverkeeper, they told me, quote: "At some point Oregon Parks & Rec
may reopen it, but no timeline suggested." Willamette River Keeper's website also says: "Today there is active interest by
Oregon Parks & Rec in increasing the management of these properties, after
many years of letting these properties languish." Whatever this ends up meaning for
Coalca Landing, we'll have to wait and see. But even if it never
reopens to the public, it'll still be fulfilling a noble purpose. The whole point of these parks is to preserve
the natural beauty and habitat of the river. And as nature continues
to reclaim the park, it's probably closer to its natural state
now than it's been in over 100 years. So if nothing else, I think we
can take some solace in that.
