Oregon Real Estate & Relocation Guide

Coos Bay, Oregon

Population: 16,005

Located in Coos County

Coos Bay has been synonymous with boat traffic since its beginnings. In the early days, a mosquito fleet of small boats, ferries, and sternwheelers delivered people and services from ocean to inland communities on a daily basis. In the 1850's, logging, coal mining, agriculture, and ship building began in the region, providing the basis for developing communities.

What now makes up the central district of Coos Bay was called Marshfield until 1944 when residents voted to change the name to Coos Bay to match the name of the Bay itself. The City of Marshfield was named after the Massachusetts home town of the City's founder, J.C. Tolman, and incorporated in 1874.

The waterfront was the focus of Marshfield, with Front Street where there are now various larger industrial uses and office buildings, being a hub of pedestrian and waterfront activity.

Recreation in Coos Bay is overflowing. With 13 parks within a short distance, you are sure to find the perfect place for a picnic, sun bathing, swimming, boating, fishing, or just spending time with family or friends.

Sunset Bay, one of the parks, has been a popular recreation site for years. Fishing, swimming, surfing, skin diving, and boating are some of the activities that make this bay an outstanding recreational area.

Cape Arago State Park is one of the other popular parks. Dubbed the "Viewpoint for Marine Animals", Arago State Park has an excellent vantage point for viewing marine animals that make the offshore rocks their home. On clear days, you can see south to Bandon and beyond from the north end of the parking area. In a winter storm, this is the place to find some of the highest winds on the coast.

But parks aren't all that Coos Bay has to offer. Located just minutes from town is the Sea Lion Caves. Within a splendid coastal headland, the sea cave is magnificent. Largest in the world, its colors make it the most beautiful. The ocean, sometimes wild and always wonderful, surges into and out of the cave where a herd of wild, golden Steller sea lions and their black pups take shelter. In summer during the breeding season, enormous bulls weighing up to 2000 pounds join the herd on rock ledges just outside the cave. Sea Lion Caves, home of wild Steller sea lions, has been called 'the treasure of the Oregon Coast.'

Coos Bay also has the Prehistoric gardens. One of the most unusual attractions in the world, a "lost world" of life-size replicas of the dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. These replicas of the animals are scientifically correct restorations, authentic in details. Their size and shape are based on the measurements of fossil skeletons.

Geographically, the Coos Bay School District is one of the largest in Oregon, stretching from the ocean shores on the west to the highest ridge of the coast range on the east. The District extends southward to the ridge that separates the Coos and Coquille watersheds and fans out northward to include the area along the Millicoma River.

The District has an enrollment of approximately four thousand students. There are three elementary schools for students in grades K-4, one intermediate school for students in grades 5-6, one middle school for students in grades 7-8, and one high school for students in grades 9-12.

The teachers in Coos Bay are well-trained, highly motivated, creative, and genuinely interested in children. There are 241 certified staff members, of whom 87 percent have additional training beyond their Bachelor's Degree. There are an additional 164 classified employees who provide support services as secretaries, custodians, cooks, aides, security, and maintenance personnel.

The combination of a supportive community and a caring, professional staff, along with a comprehensive curriculum, produces students who excel and whose work is competitive with students across the country. Families planning to move to Coos Bay can feel confident that their children are entering a state-accredited school system which has the best interests and safety of their children as the highest priority.