Jeffers Gardens, OR

Jeffers Gardens is a Clatsop County community where the Lewis and Clark River meets Jeffers Slough, about seven miles east of the mouth of the Columbia River. Youngs Bay separates the area from Astoria, while Front Road, fields, woods, docks, and low-density homes give the place a river-edge shape. The community is small, but its industrial history is unusually large for the surrounding countryside. The water crossings are part of the town's working geography.

Astoria Marine Construction Company began at the site in 1922 as a boatyard building fishing boats and sailing craft. During World War II, the yard expanded dramatically and built, outfitted, or repaired more than 200 vessels between 1941 and 1945, including attack transports, harbor tugs, and minesweepers. From 1950 to 1955 it also built minesweepers for the Korean War. The surviving shipyard district on Front Road preserves that history beside the river and slough, making Jeffers Gardens a place where maritime industry, wartime production, and rural Clatsop County geography meet.