Depoe-Bay Travel Guide
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13 miles S of Lincoln City, 13 miles N of Newport, 70 miles W of Salem
Depoe Bay calls itself the smallest harbor in the world, and though the tiny harbor covers only 6 acres, it's home to more than 100 fishing boats. These boats must all enter the harbor through a narrow rock-walled channel, little more than a crack in the coastline's solid rock wall. During stormy seas, it's almost impossible to get in or out of the harbor safely.
Shell mounds and kitchen middens around the bay indicate that Native Americans long called this area home. In 1894, the U.S. government deeded the land surrounding the bay to a Siletz Indian known as Old Charlie Depot, who had taken his name from an army depot at which he had worked. Old Charlie later changed his name to DePoe, and when a town was founded here in 1927, it took the name Depoe Bay. Though most of the town is a bit off the highway, you'll find a row of garish souvenir shops right on U.S. 101, which sadly mar the beauty of this rocky section of coast. Among these shops are several family restaurants and charter-fishing and whale-watching companies.
