The U.S. Coast Guard has a long history on the central Oregon coast.
The service was originally called the U.S. Life Saving Service and its first Yaquina Bay station in the Newport area was built in 1896 in what is now South Beach.
Operations were moved to the dormant Yaquina Bay Lighthouse across the bay in 1906. In 1915, the U.S. Life Saving Service became the U.S. Coast Guard.
A new station was built on Newport’s Bayfront in 1932 but it burned down in 1944. The current Coast Guard station opened in 1949 on the site of the Ocean House, Newport’s first hotel, on the far west end of the bayfront. A modern annex with berthing, dining, haulout facilities, as well as emergency power supplies, was completed in 1983.
The station’s area of responsibility now extends from Cape Perpetua to Spencer Creek, totaling 27 miles of coast. Its primary mission is search and rescue, the station responds to as many as 590 cases per year. The station has four virtually unsinkable motorized lifeboats which can tow vessels as large as 750 gross tons, take 30-foot seas, travel 150 nautical miles off shore, and right itself after a rollover.
- Historical photos and text provided by the Lincoln County Historical Society in a partnership with YachatsNews. To learn more about the society and local history, visit its website here. A sampling of historic images from the LCHS collection can be seen at OregonDigital.org