Warrenton’s strategic location at the river and the sea

Warrenton may be a small town, but its roots are deep and its setting nationally significant.

The city of 4,500 residents sits at the mouth of the great river of the West, the Columbia. Warrenton has been greeting guests and explorers since folks first began traveling and trading.

Additionally, as our nation grew and expanded, Warrenton and the Columbia-Pacific region have been an important military defense area.

Fort Stevens, now a popular recreation and historical site, was built during the Civil War. The fort, along with Fort Canby and Fort Columbia in Washington state, guarded the Northwest during World Wars I and II.

Until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Warrenton had been the only site to sustain an outside wartime attack on the U.S. mainland.

Crossing the Columbia River bar, where the river rushes into the ocean, has always been treacherous for sea captains. The area is often referred to as the “Graveyard of the Pacific” because of the numerous shipwrecks here over the past two centuries.

The Daniel K. Warren House off North Main Avenue. Warren, one of the town’s pioneers, is the city’s namesake.

Warrenton’s earliest days

   Capt. Robert Gray first spotted the Columbia River on a fur-trading trip in 1792, setting the stage for a commercial outpost in the area.

   Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, which was searching for an easy mainland route from the East to the West Coast, arrived in 1805. The 33 members built and lived that winter at Fort Clatsop in Warrenton, which they named for the area’s Indian population.

   Nearby Astoria began growing as a commercial trade center, thanks to the Pacific Fur Company, which established an outpost there not long after the explorers returned East. Their move makes the Astoria-Warrenton area the oldest U.S. settlement west of the Rockies.

   In 1885, longtime Astoria merchant and lumberman Daniel Warren purchased 900 acres in the region that would soon be named for him and began offering lots to homesteaders. The town was incorporated in 1899.

Above: Visitors explore the ruins of the 1906 Peter Iredale shipwreck on the beach at Fort Stevens State Park.

Right: A Japanese shell remains in the ground off DeLaura Beach Road, a remnant of the June 21, 1942, attack by the Japanese. It was the only hostile shelling of a military base on the U.S. mainland during World War II.

Warrenton’s History