Oregon Gold Beach - ROOMS

To start with The Inn of the Beachcomber is located in Gold Beach Oregon on a 4.00 acre site that starts on Hwy 101 (Ellensburg Avenue) and slops gently to the Pacific Ocean. Gold Beach is the county seat for Curry County and the town rises fairly quickly from the beach to the coastal range. Gold Beach is not necessarily what I would call really close to any big city. Gold Beach is about four hours from Eugene, over three from Medford and six hours from Portland. I made it to Gold Beach in eight hours from downtown San Francisco. I think that means that you have to either be coming to Gold Beach because you want to get away to a really unique and special place (a place not seen by most all of the world) or you’ve stumbled upon it on the way through Redwoods National Park along the southern Oregon coast. If you combine Gold Beach’s location with the simple fact that Gold Beach is surrounded by the ocean and forest lands, there are not a lot of places to build things here. The result you end up with is there’s not a lot of people in Gold Beach. Back when Zane Grey had his wilderness cabin up the Rogue in the 20’s that was not that big of a deal. Back then there were lots of places that were nice that didn’t have lots of people. Today the reality of beginning in a really beautiful place with pretty good weather most of the year and not a lot of people in the year 2007 is pretty special.

After spending some time in Gold Beach I knew it was not your regular coast town. The thing about Gold Beach is, I think there are less people in town now than when timber was king in the early seventies, it’s like the way coast towns were in the old days before they became tourist towns. If you’re looking for a trendy coast town like Cambria, Cannon Beach or Carmel you’ll be finished with Gold Beach pretty quickly. Gold Beach is still inhabited by the kind of people that have been here for a while. The kind of people that Henry Fonda and Paul Newman, portrayed in the 1964 Ken Kesey (One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest) classic Sometimes a Great Notion. The novel and movie depicted a hard working logging family living in a logging community on the Oregon Coast. Those kind of real people who go up in the woods to earn a day’s wages still can be found living today in Gold Beach. Gold Beach is changing but it’s still the place where the “Famous” Rogue River meets the Pacific Ocean. The Rogue has always been the kind of place that draws in those that love nature raw and simple. In short Gold Beach is a lot about what used to be great, i.e. the great outdoors and nature, until progress got in the way of the rest of the world. Yes it’s true not a lot has changed in Gold Beach while a lot has changed in the rest of the world. We have a Dairy Queen and that’s it for formula food. The lack of change in Gold Beach is one of the reasons it seams Gold Beach is like a place father time forgot to check in on while he changed everything else. This is good and bad. If you don’t want to see your neighbors it’s good. If you want a Star Bucks Grande Verde it’s bad, my personal preference is to just order a large coffee with cream that taste great (Dutch Brothers) so I’d have to say it’s all good.

As I mentioned before Gold Beach has two miles of beach front property and most of it is used for stuff that’s been here for a while like the airport and fairgrounds. I think the last beach front subdivision was platted along the beachfront in Gold Beach proper. The large amount of public uses has resulted in a lack of development and a beach with not a lot of folks even during the peak of the summer tourist season. When you combine that with what’s happening to the beach Gold Beach is really different. The Port of Gold Beach was constructed in the early sixties at the mouth of the Rouge River which has a Federal designation as a Wild and Scenic River.

Because of the lack of dams on the river a large amount of sediment needs to be dredged each year by the Army Corps of Engineers. This dredging, and the construction of the jetty, has caused the beach to grow over 350 feet the last forty years. Actually the geologist said he didn’t know why the beach keeps growing but this all seems to make sense. That fact is the beach has grown and that is different from most of the beaches. The beach has grown through the process of the creation of a stable dune and the growth of beach grass. When you go for a stroll on the beach its’ like stepping back in time and strolling in a simpler uncomplicated era, not really any people and hardly much development. My first thought were scenes from the summer of 42 set in Nantucket Island in 1942. The Summer of 42 was actually filmed five hours south of Gold Beach in the Fort Bragg Mendocino area. In short one of the special charms of Gold Beach is the pristine and uncrowded beach.