Post cards of Waldport (Oregon) in 1930s, 1940s

Waldport is a town along the Oregon coast where the Alsea River meets the Pacific Ocean, a bit North of the middle of the Oregon coast North to South (150 miles South of Astoria and 196 miles North of the California border).   It is a small town, having started around 1880 and still probably less than 3000 people.  It has a museum (Waldport Heritage Museum) with a web site that has lots of old photos of Waldport.  Check out their Snippits Archive!

And we have post cards, taken from the air, of Waldport.  The post cards have handwritten captions on them, and a small logo and number in the right hand corner.  The first is WA2, from 1936.

which shows the Alsea Bay bridge and the Waldport High School.  The caption reads "Waldport, Oregon. View looking West".   In the lower right corner, by the WA2 logo, is an old car from that era.

WA3, with a caption "Waldport, Oregon. View looking North" is from the 1940s, showing Highway 34 as a dirt road, a bunch of houses, and the bay.  Highway 34 comes in at the middle of the left side of the post card and exits at the middle of the right side.

The street that cuts from the lower left corner to the upper right is probably North Bay Street.  So this is really downtown Waldport, in the 1940s.

The real action of course would be along highway 101, which runs along the coast of Oregon and goes over the Alsea Bay bridge.  It is shown in WA26, from 1949.

This view apparently inspires others.  For example, a search found a stretched canvas print of a sketch of this same view, but in color, available for sale on Amazon.

The last post card we have of Waldport is captioned "Air view Alsea Bay, Waldport, Oregon." and is tagged WA27.  This shows the 1936 Alsea Bay bridge.

This is an interesting photo.  The bridge was built in 1936, and demolished in 1991 due to deterioration from harsh weather conditions, replaced by a newer bridge.  So this bridge no longer exists.  But even the old photos of it show only the top tier.  This photo shows a bottom tier.  I suspect this bottom tier was there only for the construction of the bridge, and was removed after the bridge was complete. You can almost see that the forms supporting the arches are being removed.  They are gone for the arch on the left, but still there for the middle and right arch.   Here, from Wikipedia, is another old photo showing the bridge being constructed.

The backs of these post cards are unremarkable.

The stamp box says EKC which puts them from 1939 to 1950.

Two slightly different post cards are presumably from this same time frame, but of other places.  One is marked as being "Pacific Highway, Canyon Creek, Oregon".

and has "DOPS" in the four corners of the stamp box.

Another says "Morton Wash.  Pub by Ellis, Wingrove Photo 4138", and is clearly an aerial view  from an airplane, sometime since 1950.