Early History
Long before there was a Salishan community, a golf course, or even a road along the Oregon Coast, the land between the Pacific Ocean and Siletz Bay was part of a much older story.
The story of the Salishan Spit and nearby communities is a story of three forces—people, water and time. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples lived along Siletz Bay and the surrounding coast, relying on the abundance of the estuary, rivers, forests and ocean. Salmon, shellfish, game, berries and other natural resources sustained generations of Native communities. The shoreline itself was continually changing as the Siletz River, tides, waves and storms moved sand and sediment.
When European explorers arrived in the late 1700s, they encountered a landscape already known and inhabited by Indigenous peoples. Spanish, British and American explorers charted portions of the Oregon coast, including Captain Robert Gray and George Vancouver.
The arrival of outsiders brought profound changes. Fur traders and settlers followed, while introduced diseases caused devastating losses among Native populations.
By the mid-1800s, American settlement was rapidly expanding. In 1855, the federal government established the Coast Reservation, later known as the Siletz Reservation, bringing together Native people from numerous tribes and bands.
The reservation was subsequently reduced, and federal policies opened much of the land to non-Native settlement. Homesteaders established farms and communities throughout the Siletz Bay region.
Among the early settlers was the Sijota family, Polish immigrants who established a farm in what is now Gleneden Beach. Their property included a dairy farm and farmhouse located on what is now the 18th fairway, near the entrance to our community.
Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the area remained relatively isolated. Fishing, farming and logging became important parts of the local economy. During WWI, millions of board feet of trees were floated through Siletz Bay and tugged up and down the coast to build combat aircraft.
The construction of the Roosevelt Highway—today’s Highway 101—in the 1920s changed the area dramatically, making the central Oregon Coast much more accessible. Gleneden Beach developed as a small coastal community, and improved roads eventually brought increasing numbers of visitors and residents.
By the middle of the twentieth century, the landscape had experienced remarkable change: from an ancient Indigenous homeland, to reservation and homesteading lands, to farms, forests and fishing grounds, and finally toward the coastal community that would become Salishan.
For those of us who live here today, it is worth remembering that the land between the Pacific Ocean and Siletz Bay has never been simply a piece of real estate. John Gray’s vision ensured that Salishan would always remain a unique environment blending all of the elements: people, water and time.
John Gray, a native Oregonian, businessman, philanthropist and real estate developer, built several high-end resorts in Oregon through the 1960’s and 1970’s. In planning Salishan, he envisioned a community that both benefitted from, and enhanced, the natural beauty of the Oregon coast. Gray created Salishan in 1961 by purchasing 600 acres of land with over two miles of oceanfront property that eventually offered 369 homesites. The original team of developers, investors and Architects supported his vision of creating a community in natural harmony with the beauty of this coastal site. Following is an abbreviated list of Architects who influenced the design philosophy of Salishan:
John Storrs, an influential member of the Northwest Regional style of Architecture, which is characterized by its use of natural, native materials and connection to the landscape. Storrs designed the Salishan Lodge in collaboration with Barbara Fealy, a renowned Landscape Architect.
The Portland office of Skidmore Owings and Merrill, with Dave Pugh as Principal Architect (and a Leaseholder), designed and engineered the master plan of Salishan with minimal intrusion into the natural view pathways and landscape. SOM also designed the original golf pro shop, the community center, and the original sales office/gate house (now a private residence). Salishan was the first gated community of its kind in Oregon.
Van Evera Bailey, another member of the Northwest Regional style of Architecture, designed some of the earliest homes in Salishan.
Saul Zaik designed the architecturally significant Long House, one of the first condominiums in Oregon.
