Yachats’ Trails Signs Tell Local History

The City of Yachats, The Yachats Trail Committee, and View the Future have been making steady progress in preserving and sharing the cultural history of the Yachats area through design and installation of signs depicting local history along our trails. The signs have been carefully researched to be historically accurate according to existing records and through collaboration with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.

Most recently (March 2021) four new signs describing local history have been installed with trail-map boxes attached to the signposts. The new signs were designed by the Yachats Trails Committee, installed by Yachats Public works and Funded by the City of Yachats, View the Future and a grant from the Oregon Parks Foundation Fund. The four new signs and their locations are:

“The Amanda Trail”, Located at the north entrance of the Amanda Trail
“The Gerdemann Botanical Preserve”, Located at the west end of Gerdemann Botanical Preserve and the Ya’Xaik Trail
“The Yachats Wetland Park”, Located on Ocean View Drive near 6^th
“The 804 Trail”, Located at the path between Aqua Vista Loop Drive and Marine Drive

These four new signs join seven existing signs that describe the history of the First Nation people who lived in the Yachats area before and during the Prison Camp Years. These signs were installed starting in 2016 in partnership with View the Future, the Ben Christiansen fund, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lowe Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, City of Yachats, Yachats Public works Dept., Yachats Trails Committee, Angel Job Corp, Oregon Parks Foundation Fund under the Oregon Community Foundation, and many private contributors.

These 7 signs are in commemoration of Ben Christensen a dedicated community member and hardworking volunteer who had been planning to work with others on the creation of these signs. He died on August 1, 2015 while working on the Amanda Trail with fellow crew members. ”

Ya’Xaik Trail signs (2016)