The towns and scenic byways of the Long Beach Peninsula attract more than just tourists, and from Oysterville to Ilwaco, ghostly tales abound. In Seaview, the Lamplighter hosts a multitude of spirits, including Lily, a murdered barmaid, while at the nearby Shelburne Inn, many guests have reported a ghostly presence that has yet to be identified. Mysterious footsteps can be heard on the stairs of the George Johnson house in Ocean Park, and a man holding...

For 100 miles along the western edge of Washington State, an unusual agricultural community hugs the Pacific shoreline. Bogs of bright cranberries stretch from the Long Beach Peninsula at the mouth of the Columbia River north to Grayland, Ocean Shores, and Copalis Crossing. Here, along this remote stretch of stormy seacoast, is a prime farming center for a fruit that grows in very few areas on earth. For countless centuries before pioneer settlement,...

For generations, Chinook Indians camped in the area that is now Oysterville, gathering oysters from the shallow waters of Shoalwater Bay. When tribal elder "Old Klickeas" introduced two young adventurers, Robert Hamilton Espy and Isaac Alonzo Clark, to the oyster treasure, the pioneer boom years began. Oysters were marketed in gold-rich, oyster-hungry San Francisco, where a plateful sold for $50. Within months, there were several hundred settlers,...

"Hangings, lynchings and jail breaks are long forgotten in Pacific County, where tourists flock to quaint attractions every season. But back in the early days, when the first jailhouse was built, this was a rough, rustic setting. Popular cannery worker Lum You was hanged here in 1902the only legal execution in county history. Industrious smugglers and creative entrepreneurs outwitted state-sanctioned prohibition measures, though some still did time...