The Lewis & Clark Salt Works — Attraction in Seaside

Worth checking out if you're already in the area and have a moment to stop by.

This nice little outdoor history exhibit marks the approximate location where salt was extracted from seawater for the Lewis and Clark expedition’s journey back to Missouri.

The first information sign reads:

Four Bushels of Salt

In early 1806, members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped near several Clatsop and Tillamook plankhouses. Their goal was to produce salt for preserving meat and improving their bland diet. They traveled down the coast from Fort Clatsop to find salt water not diluted by the Columbia River. They continued south and established a camp with wood to burn, fresh water to drink, and elk to hunt.

Five men built the camp and began boiling salt water. After seven weeks of effort they produced 28 gallons of salt that Captain Lewis found to be "excellent, fine, strong & white; this was a great treat to myself and most of the party.”

The second information sign reads:

A Convenient Place for Making Salt

The Corps of Discovery, under the command of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, established their winter quarters at Fort Clatsop on 7 December 1805. "We haveing fixed on this situation," Clark noted, "I deturmin'd to go as direct a Course as I could to the Sea Coast...to look out a place to make salt." Although Clark was indifferent to salt, the rest of the expedition wanted it to season their bland diet of fish, elk, and dog.

On 28 December 1805, the expedition's commanders sent five men "with 5 of the largest Kittles" to establish a saltmaking camp on this beach. Two men from this party returned to Fort Clatsop eight days later with a salt sample that pleased everyone. The expedition's saltmaking camp operated until 21 February 1806, and produced 3½ bushels of salt (nearly 28 gallons). Although personnel varied, three men were usually occupied boiling sea water to make salt. "With the means we have," wrote Meriwether Lewis, "we find it a very tedious operation... we keep the kettles boiling day and night."

"Willard and Wiser.... informed us that it was not untill the fifth day after leaving the Fort that they could find a convenient place for making salt; that they had at length established themselves... near the lodge of some Killamuck families; that the Indians were very friendly and had given them a considerable quantity of the blubber of a whale which perished on the coast.... These lads also informed us that [the salt makers] ...commenced the making of salt and found that they could obtain from 3 quarts to a gallon a day; they brought with them a specemine of the salt of about a gallon, we found it excellent, fine, strong, & white; this was a great treat to myself and most of the party," Meriwether Lewis, January 5, 1806

To get to the Salt Cairn walk North along the Promenade three blocks to Lewis and Clark Way. The Salt Cairn is on Lewis and Clark Way 100 feet East of the Promenade.

The plaque reads:

Lewis & Clark Salt Cairn

On January 2, 1806, the salt works was established by the three "salt makers" of the Lewis & Clark expedition Joseph Fields, William Bratten and George Gibson, who remained here until February 20, 1806. These men, assisted at times by hunters and packers, were able during this period to tediously extract approximately four bushels of salt by boiling seawater day and night in five metal "kittles".

The expedition had run out of salt before arrival at their winter camp at Fort Clatsop, 10 miles to the northeast and it was very necessary for curing meat and preparing for the return trip to civilization.

This actual site was established by a committee of the Oregon Historical Society in 1900, on the testimony of Jenny Michel of Seaside, whose Clatsop Indian father remembered seeing the white men boiling water, and had pointed out this place to her when she was a young girl. She was born in this vicinity about 1816 and died in 1905.

Erected by Seaside...

Wonderful historical marker that is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park. Visited here in the autumn. If you're interested in learning about the Lewis and Clark expedition this place is definitely worth a stop, it preserves the site were the Lewis and Clark expedition set up camp to make salt after their long journey to the Pacific Ocean. It explains the reason they came down this far as well (they had to get far enough away from the area where the fresh water or the Columbia mixes into the Pacific). The signs are old but they are still readable, and the whole area is viewable from beyond since that surrounds the whole thing. Overall a nice little stop with a good...

We found this thinking it was a Lewis and Clark monument that is actually a few blocks away. There's not much to see here, but it a neat spot to stop to see for a historical perspective on what they had to do for something we take for granted, like salt. Reading comments on other sites, people are saying it's a recreation. Well of course it is. I'm seriously doubt they built the salt works to be a permanent fixture. It's still a worthwhile stop if you're...