- Location
- Oregon
- Current protection
- Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor and neighboring state parks
- Status
- No active campaign
- Tier
- Tier 2 · National Monument
- In the book
- Not featured in Undiscovered America
Why should it be a National Park?
Between Gold Beach and Brookings, the southern Oregon coast is a run of sea stacks, natural bridges, and hidden coves below a wall of Sitka spruce, one of the wildest stretches of shoreline on the West Coast. Natural Bridges and Arch Rock are among the most photographed places in Oregon.
Locals wanted a National Park here in the 1930s, and a senator carried the bill. The state protected a corridor instead, and it is beautiful, but this coast deserves to be seen as the equal of Olympic's.
The history of National Park Campaigns
In the 1930s, locals pushed to make the coast between Gold Beach and Brookings a National Park, and Sen. Charles McNary introduced a bill in Congress in 1938. It did not pass. The state later protected much of the stretch as the Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, named for the first superintendent of Oregon's state parks.
- Distinct National Park attempts
- 1 (1938 McNary bill)
- Other designation attempts
- 1 (state scenic corridor)
Sources
- The Oregonian, "In search of the lost Oregon Coast National Park" (2017)
- Wikipedia, List of proposed National Parks of the United States
- 1938
Sen. Charles McNary introduces a bill for an Oregon Coast National Park between Gold Beach and Brookings.
- After 1950
Oregon assembles the Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, named for the state's first parks superintendent.