On November 29, Black Friday, we’ll be dropping some very special Oregon Black Pioneers merch! With generous support from The People’s Coast, OBP has created imaginative logos for four real Black-owned businesses that operated on the Oregon Coast between the 1880s and 1960s. Our inaugural batch of hats, stickers and mugs will go on sale on Friday, November 29 in our Merch! store!
Roscoe’s First Class Oyster Saloon
Location: Astoria
1880-1885
Roscoe Dixon moved from Massachusetts to Oregon in the 1870s and operated an oyster house in Portland. In 1880, he relocated to Astoria where he opened Roscoe’s First Class Oyster Saloon, the city’s earliest-known Black-owned business. In addition to fresh oysters, Dixon’s restaurant served homemade ice cream. Dixon closed his business in 1885 and moved with his family to Seattle.
Badgers’ Chicken Dinner Inn
Location: Gearhart
1936-1959
Willam and Emma Badger arrived in the new resort community of Gearhart in 1915. In 1922 William’s wages as a luggage porter allowed the couple to build a two-level home. In 1936, they converted the lower level of their home into a restaurant, and opened Badgers’ Chicken Dinner Inn. They served roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, green veggies, and plum pudding. The couple ran the business until 1959.
Paquita & Zarate’s
Location: Lincoln City
1962-1968
Myrtle Watkins, aka “Paquita,” was a Black jazz singer from Alabama who toured the world in the ‘20s and ’30s. In 1939, she fell in love and formed a musical duo with Samuel Zarate, a Mexican musician. Paquita and Zarate moved to Oregon and in 1957 became the house act for a Depoe Bay hotel. In 1962 they bought a home in Lincoln Beach and sold candy, ice cream, seashells, and driftwood from a roadside stand shaped like a covered wagon complete with two life-sized cement oxen.
McCleary’s Meats
Location: Waldport and Newport
1900s-1910s
Alvin McCleary was born and orphaned in San Francisco, and adopted by Mary Cooper. They moved to Salem, Oregon, where Mary married Louis Southworth in 1873. The family homesteaded near Waldport, where Alvin worked as a fisherman in his teens. Around 1900, he ran a butcher shop in Waldport, then relocated the business to Newport. He was back in Waldport by 1910, where he worked as the dining room manager at the Wakefield Hotel.