Sign about South Beach area is one of a group of six signs beneath the south end of the Yaquina Bay Bridge.
Marker Name: South of the Bay
Marker Text: The South Beach of Yaquina Bay has changed each decade as regularly as the tides. The Yacona Indians set up summer camps here before the Coast Reservation was established in 1855. Lemuel Davis homesteaded a good chunk of the land when it was opened for settlement in 1866, building a home two years later and operating a ferry and campground until the late 1870s.
In the 1880s, the government built houses for men working on the south jetty. In the 1890s the United States Life Saving Service built and operated a station in South Beach. In the 1910s investors laid out a resort town called Horborton. During WWI the Army set up a hospital. In the 1950s, South Beach boasted a drive-in theater, car dealership, a motel and Triangle Pacific Lumber, now the site of the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
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