The Daily Morning Astorian, March 31, 1886, mentions that 18 citizens were not able to vote because of a glitch, and one of the precincts mentioned in passing was Vesper.

Vesper? The Nehalem River passes through this unincorporated area in Clatsop County, which is near Birkenfeld and the Columbia County line.

The town was named and settled by an Irishman named William Johnston who, with his family, settled there in 1876 and built the town’s first church using local lumber. In the winter of 1879, he opened the town’s first post office, and was the first postmaster. 

Vesper was initially cut off from the rest of the county to the west by land, and was only accessible by ferry on the Nehalem River. In 1901, a 42-mile county wagon road was built to Vesper, and in 1908, the road was restored to make it suitable for automobiles. Now the road through Vesper is state Highway 202. The first bridge in Vesper across the Nehalem River was built in 1915.

If you look at a Google satellite map, there doesn’t seem to be much left of the original Vesper, which is in the Clatsop State Forest. However, there is the winding Old 77 Vesper Lane, if you dare, and still standing is a small, wooden, often-photographed 1915 church. (Photo: Flickr/ Tony Webster)