Oysterville

Oysterville is located on Willapa Bay and was established in 1841. The entire town was registered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.  Most of the houses have been lost to the sea and the elements and there are some new ones, but there are over 15 buildings that still exist.  The trees on the main street are huge and it fives a very old feel to the location.

Looking down the street, check out the trees.

This is appropriately called the Red Cottage. It is the oldest surviving structure and was built by Captain J W Munson and served as the first Pacific County Courthouse.

Not sure if this was an old house or a newer one but they did a good job of making it blend. I really liked the hitching posts out front.

This is the church

Here is one of the signs that are in front of some of the houses. I thought this story was a little sad and the house really hadn't been kept up.

It is also the location of the Willapa Wild Oyster Farm.  They farm over 300 acres on Willapa Bay by hand picking all their oysters. Willapa Bay is the cleanest bay in the Continental  US. It is also the only bay with no pollution in either the water or the sediment. Oysters are a critical part of the ecosystem. A medium sized oyster will filter 50 gallons of water per day and every shell is 12% of pure carbon pulled from the atmosphere. This company only harvests their oysters by hand to ensure that only the oysters get picked and it leaves vegetation intact. The girl at the market told us that this area provides 10% of all the oysters in the world.

The market and restaurant are in the building on the left.

It was low tide so you don't see much water

They let us take a few oysters shells home with us. 

Neither Len and I are oyster eaters but we did find some nice seafood spices that I used in some crab chowder.