Gordon Smith, owner of Camp 18 Restaurant, stands in front of the Camp 18 Logging Museum and Loggers' Memorial. 

Behind an entrance marked by an enormous logging grapple hook stands the Camp 18 Logging Museum and Loggers’ Memorial. The building, located next to the Camp 18 Restaurant in Elise, is meant to keep the memories of Oregon loggers alive. Visitors can walk up to train cars, a caboose and logging equipment used in the heyday of logging in the Pacific Northwest.

Gordon Smith, owner of Camp 18 Restaurant, and the late Maurie Clark started the memorial to honor loggers who were killed while working in the field. Eventually, the museum became a nonprofit organization separate from the restaurant.

Herman Doty, president of the museum, said he got involved when he volunteered to restore the blacksmith shop on site. He called the memorial a hidden treasure for Oregon. “The first time I walked into the memorial I felt something and I knew this is a good thing going,” Doty said. “There really does need to be a place to memorialize the people from our past.”

Doty runs a blacksmith shop in Rockaway Beach. He became treasurer of the board for the museum and then was asked to become president. “We have period logging equipment and a nice trail you can walk around to see the equipment,” Doty said. “The memorial is a very nice building with a beautiful bronze monument.”

Doty and the rest of the board are still adding to the memorial. Families can have their own plaque designed to commemorate a relative who was a logger in the Pacific Northwest. “I’ve had some really special moments at the memorial with families of loggers,” Doty said. “It really is important to have the memorial there so that there’s knowledge of the hardworking people who have come before.”