This is Beaver Slough- a resource gathering area and major travel corridor for the Hanis and Miluk people (Coos Bay estuary) and the Athabaskan speaking people (Coquille River). This was once Oregon’s only commercially developed coal region. Euro-Americans settled here in the 1850s. By 1893, the region’s first railroad ran alongside Beaver Slough, transporting coal to a hungry steam-power market. In 1895, 11 Black miners from West Virginia were recruited on the promise of $5 per day but were paid just $0.90 per day on arrival. When they complained, they were fired en masse. By the late 1890s, around 100 Black miners and their families lived at Beaver Hill at a time when Blacks in Oregon numbered just 1,100. The company town prospered between 1894 and 1926 with a diverse population of Italian, Greek, Irish, Scotch, English, Mexican, Scandinavian, Austrian, Chinese, and Japanese miners and their families.

• Workers extracted tons of coal from Beaver Hill, the largest mine in Coos County.
• Competition from oil and gas eliminated the Coos coal market after the 1920s. Little evidence remains today of Beaver Hill mine or its community
• The integrated school reflected the diversity of the community.

Location: At entrance of ODFW Beaver Slough parking lot in Coquille Valley Wildlife Area

Sponsors: Oregon Black Pioneers, Travel southern Oregon Coast, Oregon Coast Visitors Association, Coos History Museum

Learn More: Visit Oregon Encyclopedia