The City of Gearhart
Over the past 150 years, Gearhart nestled into its purpose as a quiet and somewhat exclusive summer coastal destination for the well-heeled of Oregon. The year-round residents engaged in the timber business and farming during the off season. In the summer and fall, many of them worked in the hospitality industry serving the needs of those with summer homes and the many functions at the Grand beachfront hotels that each graced the City of Gearhart at different times.
The summer traditions in Gearhart gradually became perennial with the wives and children of Portland businessmen arriving in the spring to open up the beach cottages and get things ready for summer. Soon the fathers began to commute from Portland late Friday and return home Sunday evening. The trains that arrived and departed at those times were called the “Daddy Trains”. As paved roads began to appear and automobiles became common, the train service gradually dropped off in the ‘30s and ‘40s and finally ended. The tracks were torn out in the mid 1970s. |
Since the 1800s, Gearhart has had a way of captivating and delighting an affluent crowd from larger inland cities.
After the completion of the Astoria and South Coast Railway in 1890, prosperous city dwellers began taking the train down for summers of quiet, un-crowded solitude. From the early 1900s well into the ‘60s, the grand beachfront hotels in Gearhart catered to the wealthy and defined the word “Luxury”. Throughout every era, this special little city by the sea has offered elegant and superb coastal living.