Oregon Logging Legacy at Camp 18

Behemoths from the past sleep idle at Camp 18. Cranes, train cars, and giant saws. They are so close, that one can walk right up to these sleeping giants and feel a step back in time. A testament to the region’s logging history takes the form of a restaurant, museum, and grounds that hold ghosts of logging past.
At mile post 18 along highway 26 between Portland and Seaside, there’s a great, … no, grand place to stop, eat, and take a walk through history. Camp 18 restaurant remembers Oregon’s logging industry with filling food, relics of the past, and reverence for those who did dangerous work.
The restaurant’s main room will arrest your attention and distract you from studying the menu. Running the entire width of the ceiling ridgeline is an 85ft tree trunk that only a fisheye lens could capture in its entirety. When originally cut, it weighed 25 tons. The dining tables are large, and some are made from lengthy, wide, single “boards.” In an alcove at one end is a fantastic fireplace, corralled by cozy couches, and the mantel, made of a solid piece of black walnut, spans the entire space. Enormous items made of large cuts of wood abound! The main doors are 500-pound, hand carved pieces, and everywhere one looks, there are large cuts of timber and large tools that were used to cut them.
To walk off a sizeable meal, walk the grounds, which are filled with more amazing features: old train cars, cranes, a massive saw, and a grapple hook that you could drive a car through. Visit the logging museum onsite. Check out the banquet room beneath the restaurant; its bar is yet another gargantuan slab of wood. A nice finishing touch is to walk down to the creek behind the restaurant.
This adventurer will be back. There’s still more to see!