
The First People - Yaquina Head - Newport, Oregon
Posted by:
Volcanoguy
N 44° 40.489 W 124° 04.493
10T E 414804 N 4947389
A history sign at Yaquina Head, Newport, Oregon
Waymark Code: WMWTBE
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 10/10/2017
Views: 0
A history sign behind the Yaquina Head Visitor Center shows a series of historic images at Yaquina Head.
Text of sign (captions of images):
The First People
For thousands of years, Yaquina Head provided Native Americans with a village site and a 1-mile pathway to the open sea. Here the Yaquina people hunted harbor seals and sea otters, and gathered mussels and other seafood in the bountiful waters.
The Yaquina people hunted deer and elk on the headlands’s two grassy hills. The periodically burned the hills to maintain open grazing land for the animals.
Sketch of Yaquina people in 1877; Kaseeah, his son, and two wives at Yaquina Bay.
In 1855 the U.S. government forced Native Americans onto the Coast Indian Reservation. Sadly, by this time, European diseases had devastated the Yaquina people. According to the 1910 federal census, only 19 Yaquinas remained. Today, their descendants are members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
Julia Megginson, believed to be of the Sixes tribe of southern Oregon (ca. 1928).
After being relocated to the Coast Indian Reservation, Julia married George Megginson, a Euro-American employee of the reservation. When President Andrew Johnson opened large parts of the reservation to settlers in 1865, the couple claimed land on Yaquina Head and grazed cattle.
Historic Topic: Native American
 Group Responsible for placement: BLM
 Marker Type: Trail
 Region: Coast
 County: Lincoln
 State of Oregon Historical Marker "Beaver Board": Not listed
 Web link to additional information: Not listed

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