Oregon Institute of Marine Biology is the marine research field station of the University of Oregon, situated on South Slough adjacent to Coos Bay about 7 miles southwest of North Bend and 0.3 miles north of Charleston, Oregon. The university has taught and conducted research in marine biology on the southern Oregon coast since 1924. The Coos Bay estuary is approximately 12 miles long and up to 2 miles wide, formed where the Coos River flows into the Pacific Ocean. Charleston was named for Charles Haskell, a settler who filed a land claim along South Slough in 1853. The town is headquarters for the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. Established in 1974, the reserve covers 4 thousand 7 hundred and 70 acres along the Coos Bay estuary south of Charleston. It was the first of 29 such reserves in the United States and the only one in Oregon. Today the harbor is home to a large commercial fishing fleet and Coast Guard Station Coos Bay.

The original inhabitants of Coos Bay were the Coos tribe, which consisted of two bands: the Hanis-speaking Coos lived in present-day North Bend, while the Miluk-speaking Coos lived on South Slough. Though both bands lived in close proximity along Coos River tributaries, they spoke different dialects and had distinct histories and cultures. In 1700 a major earthquake triggered a tsunami that flooded coastal Coos villages. In 1791 the American captain James Baker, aboard the three-masted schooner Jenny, entered the Umpqua River north of Coos Bay at present-day Reedsport, and traded with the Lower Umpqua tribe for about 12 days. In 1806 the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery reported the “Cook-koo-oose nation.” Hudson’s Bay Company trappers made first contact with the Coos tribe in 1820, followed by the American fur trapper Jedediah Smith and his men in 1828. Smallpox had wiped out the Hanis Coos village at Tenmile Lakes by 1824, and a measles outbreak in 1836 reduced the Coos Bay population from 2,000 to 800. Britain transferred sovereignty of the Oregon Territory to the United States in 1846. The Treaty of 1855 provided for the acquisition of the confederated tribes’ ancestral lands by white settlers but was never ratified by the Senate. The Coos were forcibly marched to Fort Umpqua during the Rogue River War of 1856, and held prisoner with the Lower Umpqua to prevent their involvement in the conflict. In 1860 they were marched 60 miles up the coast to the Alsea subagency at Yachats, a reservation on the Yachats River. Tribal sovereignty was recognized in 1984, and funding for education, housing and health programs was restored.

In 1878 the first life-saving station was established at Cape Arago, below the lighthouse on a small sandy beach. A simple structure manned by a single keeper and sparsely equipped, it required the keeper to rouse a volunteer crew before any rescue attempt. By 1892 Station Coos Bay had moved from the lighthouse to the North Spit of Coos Bay and was fully staffed. It moved again in 1915 to the lee side of the Coos Head promontory, where a larger complex was built comprising an administration building, quarters, a boathouse and a workshop. The station’s last move was in 1968 to its present location at Charleston Boat Basin. Positioned at the mouth of Coos Bay, the station serves the seventh-largest port on the West Coast. The bar, when breaking, is narrow and dangerous, but offers a short transit before the shelter of the jetties. The port accommodates large bulk carriers, and Charleston hosts a sizable commercial fishing fleet. Station Coos Bay conducts search-and-rescue operations from the Coos River to Cape Blanco. Read more here and here. Explore more of South Slough and Charleston here: