Fort Clatsop Administrative History

Identification of the Site, 1899-1900

Identification of Fort Clatsop, 30 August 1899. Shown in photo are: O.D. Wheeler, Silas Smith, William Chance, George W. Lownsburg, George Noland, George H. Hines (OHS representative), the caption of the boat launch, and J.Q.A. Bowlley.
(Photo courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, photo negative number 1694)

By 1899, public interest in establishing the specific location of the fort grew. During that year, a writer for the Northern Pacific Railway named Olin D. Wheeler arrived on the scene. He was attempting to trace the route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and this inevitably brought him to Astoria in search of Fort Clatsop. Wheeler got a group of local people who knew the site to take him there around August 28-29, 1899. In his party were four long-time Astorians and the grandson of Chief Comowool, Silas B. Smith, as well as a representative of the Oregon Historical Society and a photographer. The five men were in general agreement as to the location of the site, which they pointed out to Wheeler, and a series of photographs were taken. However, Wheeler did not record the exact location of the identified site, leaving only photographic evidence as their identification.

Due to Wheeler's lack of documentation, the process of identification was repeated in June 1900, when the Oregon Historical Society decided to locate the site in hopes of placing a marker on it. This time, the identification party consisted of Silas B. Smith, Carlos Shane, Preston W. Gillette, and two members of the historical society. Carlos Shane was the first resident settler of the site. Preston W. Gillette settled a land claim a couple of miles away. No surveyor accompanied them. The party pointed out where they remembered seeing the southwest corner of the fort and placed a stake in the ground. Using that corner as a base, they then placed three more stakes where they speculated the other three corners of the stockade would have been. The historical society then took depositions from the settlers, who described when they saw the fort remains, what they saw, and where they saw them. An important factor in identifying the Fort Clatsop site comes from Shane's testimony and his recollection about the fort remains' size and layout. Shane stated that there were two cabins parallel to each other, about 15 feet apart, each cabin being about 16 by 30 feet. [23] What is significant about this description is that it roughly follows William Clark's floor plan of Fort Clatsop drawn on the elk-hide cover of his journal. However, Clark's floor plan was not made public until 1904. The correspondence of Shane's observations with Clark's floor plan is perhaps the strongest evidence to substantiate that the site pointed out was indeed the site of Fort Clatsop. Also in these depositions, Carlos Shane admitted to trying to burn the remains after building his house so he could use the land. Gillette reported first seeing the ruins in 1853 and that the log ends were burned, so Shane was not entirely successful. The fact that Shane tried is a testimony to the fact that while the site was important enough to be sought out and visited by passersby and other locals, it was not important enough to those using the land to try and preserve the historic remains in any way. The testimony of Shane, Gillette, and Smith convinced the historical society that the location of Fort Clatsop was permanently fixed and in 1901 the society purchased a three-acre site that contained the fort site.

Identification of Fort Clatsop, 30 August 1899. Shown are George Noland, Silas Smith (pointing), George Hines.
(Photo courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, photo negative number 1692-93)