The Lewis River Hydroelectric Projects - PacifiCorp

Beaver Bay—Local Welcome Sign
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Beaver Bay
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Beaver Bay Park
Welcome to Beaver Bay Park. This facility is owned and operated by the
power company PacifiCorp, which provides public recreation
opportunities along the reservoirs of the Lewis River.
This large campground and day-use site provides access to scenic Yale
Reservoirs, nestled at the base of Mt. St. Helens. Launch your boat here to
explore the quiet, remote shorelines of this mountain reservoir. Yale Lake
provides great fishing opportunities for trout, kokanee, and other
gamefish. Beaver Bay Park also features 63 campsites, a group campsite, a
picnic area, a swimming beach, restrooms and showers.
Sidebar:
The North Fork of the Lewis River tends to draw people who enjoy the
idea of living self-reliantly in a wild and beautiful place. Even in the
heady days of settlement, when homesteads sprang up in the lower
valley, the upper Lewis River remained almost empty of permanent
residents. There were notable exceptions, though—two of whom lived
quite close to today’s Beaver Bay Campground.
One of the first settlers on the upper Lewis, Joe Masters homesteaded
here at what is now called Beaver Bay. He hailed from Arizona, where he
had been an Indian scout for the US Army. It was said that he had
recently lost his wife and children, though he rarely spoke of them.
Masters was well-known and well-loved throughout the valley, and
especially famous among wide-eyed children for his exciting tales of Wild
West adventure. He was a consummate woodsman and a popular
companion for camping adventures in the mountains, where he
entertained at evening campfires with jokes, songs, and tunes on his
mouth harp. He died in 1926, and is buried at Yale Cemetery.
Ole Peterson arrived on the upper Lewis River around 1894. He settled
about six miles east of here near Dry Creek, just downstream of today’s
Swift Dam. Peterson was an entrepreneur, hermit, photographer, and
iconoclast. He ran cattle and had a small orchard, sold timber and did
some small-scale farming. He died in 1953, at age 85, after being injured
in a fire at his homestead.
Ole was well-known along the river. His colorful language, eccentricity,
and staunch political views (he claimed to have thrown his radio out the
window and sworn off trips to town after listening to a Roosevelt speech)
made him a darling of local newspapers, and his curmudgeonly
whiskered visage decorated many a story.
Appendix 1: panel profiles Lewis River Draft I&E Plan page 41