The Siuslaw River flows generally west-northwest for 110 miles (177 km) to the Pacific Ocean at Florence, about 53 miles (85 km) west of Eugene and 43 miles (69 km) south of Newport, Oregon. The river starts at an elevation of 636 feet (194 m) in the Coast Range and drains a watershed of 494,720 acres (200,206 ha). Named after the Siuslaw people, a Yakonan tribe, the river was first mentioned by Lewis and Clark‘s Corps of Discovery Expedition in 1805; Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the US Exploring Expedition recorded another variant in 1842. Florence, a community along the river estuary, was historically the site of a Siuslaw village. The estuary extends 26 miles (42 km) upstream to the head of tide. The watershed is underlain by sedimentary rocks of the Tyee Formation, which developed during the Eocene (about 56 million to 34 million years ago) from marine turbidite deposits. At the river mouth, bedrock is covered by aeolian deposits of fine sand that create coastal dunes. The youngest dunes, nearest the ocean, formed over the past 7,000 years. Dunes further inland formed more than 20,000 years ago, and the tops of some of the highest dunes were last active more than 100,000 years ago. The sand comes mostly from the Umpqua and Siuslaw rivers.

The Siuslaw people inhabited cedar plank houses in about 50 villages and many more seasonal camps, utilizing resources throughout the Siuslaw watershed. An estimated 900 to 2,100 individuals were present at the time of Euro-American contact in the early 19th century. Winter villages near the estuary provided year-round access to salmon, shellfish and other tidewater and marine foods. Fish weirs in the river estuary, built with wooden stakes hammered into the mudflats, have been used for at least 1,000 years. From spring through autumn, the Siuslaw people moved upriver to harvest plants, berries and anadromous fish, including Pacific lamprey. Euro-American settlement occurred in the upper reaches of the basin near the Willamette Valley in the 1850s. The Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw tribes maintained peaceful relations with settlers streaming in from the east. In 1855, the federal government drafted a treaty allowing for the peaceful acquisition and settlement of traditional tribal lands in exchange for compensation, but Congress never ratified it. In 1860, the coastal tribes were forcibly removed and marched 60 miles (100 km) north to the Alsea subagency, a reservation on the Yachats River, and their lands were opened to settlement.

In 1876, the first salmon cannery and fishery opened on the shifting sands but closed three years later because sand blew into the machinery. Reports of huge runs of spawning salmon attracted others who built canneries on the estuary. In 1884, William Kyle opened a cannery and store in Florence, and a co-operative cannery was built near the mouth of the North Fork of the Siuslaw River in 1887. These canneries imported Chinese laborers to process fish and prepare cans, bringing in equipment and supplies from Astoria and San Francisco. Kyle’s cannery packed about 350 cases of salmon daily, with 48 one-pound cans per case. From 1887 to 1892, 68,762 cases of salmon were canned and shipped from the Siuslaw River. Kyle also owned the steam tug Robarts, the three-masted lumber schooner Bella and the Florence Lumber Company. Bella, 121 feet (37 m) long, was built in 1897 upriver of Florence at Acme (now Cushman). The schooner transported lumber from Florence to San Francisco and brought supplies back, since the town had no road access. In 1906, Bella arrived at the Siuslaw mouth when the bar was rough and hove-to offshore, waiting for better weather, but was blown ashore. The crew reportedly walked through the surf, and all supplies were salvaged, but the ship was lost. Today, the shipwreck is occasionally visible after winter storms shift the beach sand. Read more here and here. Explore more of the Siuslaw River and Florence here: