1850 — Phillip Gearhart, a local settler, arrives in Gearhart.

1889 — Gearhart is established and named for Phillip Gearhart.

1890 — Marshall Kinney purchases property land plats the town site of Gearhart Park in 1890, the same year that the Astoria & South Coast Railway arrives, in which Kinney is an investor.

1890 — The first Hotel Gearhart, opens on the present-day site of City Hall. When the second Gearhart Hotel was built on the oceanfront, the first hotel is renamed the Neacoxie and used as hotel staff quarters. The first was destroyed by fire in 1913.

1890 — Ridge Path is designed between Cottage Avenue and Neacoxie Creek.

1897 — Gearhart Post Office opens.

1898 — Through train-service from Portland is inaugurated as Gearhart thrives.

1901 — Marshall Kinney develops a full nine-hole golf course, touted as “the finest in the country.”

1909 — Gearhart School District is formed.

1911 — Gearhart’s first school on A Street opens to classes.

1913 — Hotel Gearhart burns, replaced by what is described as a “monumental shingled hostelry perched on the foredune like a huge Cape Cod Cottage.”

1915 — William Samuel Badger, a contractor and road builder, moves to Gearhart. Badger is to become the first African-American to serve in public office in Oregon in 1918 as a member of the City Council, in a state with racial exclusion laws on the books during his term and remaining law until 1926.

1918 — Gearhart, formerly part of the town of Clatsop, is incorporated. P.A. Lee was elected mayor; F.L. Hager, auditor and police judge; and D.B. Schroeder, treasurer.

1920 — Gearhart’s population is counted at 128.

1923 —Second Hotel Gearhart opens; the structure is to entertain guests until demolition in 1972.

1924 — City Hall is dedicated.

1929 — Development stalls after the stock market crash of October 1929.

1932 — City offers municipal work to those unable to pay their water bills.

1937 — Gearhart Fire Department is formed under the leadership of Harold Tyberg, the first fire chief.

1938 — Carl Lolk wins the mayoral election, unseating incumbent J.L Burgess by three votes.

1943 — Enter the elk: The Signal reports elk which make their home along the Necanicum valley “have become particularly obnoxious,” turning their attentions to the shrubs, lawns, garden plots and the pastures of the farms along the valley. “As they are tame as cattle, there is nothing much to do be done about it without harming the animals,” the Signal writes.

1943 — Representatives of Seaside and Gearhart meet to consider a merger of the two cities. If the plan had been adopted, the result would have been an enlarged municipality with about 4,000 people, extending from the base of Tillamook Head to a point about two miles north of the mouth of the Necanicum River.

1947 — Gearhart’s Lesley Miller advocates the establishment of Gearhart Park, stretching along the ocean front north of Pacific Way. Miller envisioned it as “a place to play baseball, football, have a picnic, or just sit, relax and watch the sunset.”

1948 — Bids for a new elementary school in Gearhart are received. The new building, estimated to cost $58,000 including the site, is sited on a 5-acre tract facing Sixth Street.

1948 — Meetings of the elementary school boards of Cannon Beach, Gearhart and Seaside, seek an administrative merger of the elementary schools.

1951 — The old schoolhouse on A Street is sold by the district into private ownership; a two-room annex acquired by the newly formed Trail’s End Art Association.

1951 — A fluoridation plant is established for the Gearhart water supply.

1953 — The remains of an 18-foot to 20-foot killer whale washes ashore.

1953 — The City Council accepts the annual budget of $13,433.70.

1953 — William Badger dies at age 75.

1958 — Volunteers build firehouse on Pacific Way with a budget of $20,000.

1959 — Gearhart enacts first zoning rules, labeling South Marion Avenue “Residential-1” in response to a request for a garage for logging trucks in the dunes.

1968 — Dunes north of Gearhart considered as a location for a county convention center. The center would be located on the foredune facing the ocean.

1968 — Gearhart votes in the 1968 presidential election, with 185 votes for Richard Nixon; 147 votes for Hubert Humphrey and nine for former Alabama Governor George Wallace.

1968 — Contract for a $20,000 addition to Gearhart school is awarded, to include a cafeteria, restrooms, library extension and storage room.

1976 — Gearhart Homeowners’ Association develops a survey to form an organization that would act as a watchdog against condominiums and commercialism in Gearhart. Both part- and full-time residents respond they “value Gearhart’s unique quality of life.”

1978 — The state’s Land Conservation and Development commission provides grants to Gearhart for completion of its comprehensive plan and a water quality monitoring grant.

1978 — Police Chief John Gardner and the Gearhart Police Department begin a crackdown on stray dogs. Previously, officers had only handled the problem on a complaint basis only.

1980 — Gearhart residents, angry over Surf Pines’ homeowners efforts to close the Clatsop Plains beach to cars, gather countywide support in their effort to keep the beaches open to traffic.

1980 — First July 4 “Kid’s Day Parade” takes place, down Marion Avenue and onto Pacific Way.

1981 —Author and international gourmet James Beard, a longtime Gearhart resident, dies at age 81. “No place I have ever been gives me quite as much pleasure,” Beard wrote in his autobiography.

1986 — Tsunami warning on May 7 causes the evacuation of Gearhart. The result is a massive traffic jam on U.S. Highway 101.

1988 — Scores of people flock to view the dead gray whale the ocean deposited north of Del Rey Beach.

1990 — In July 1989, the Gearhart City Council alleges Pacific Way Bakery and Cafe owners are in violation of zoning laws by serving restaurant food. The council revokes the cafe’s business license until Clatsop County Circuit Judge Alan Davis reverses the order, telling the city “it had no right to go that far.”

1992 — State keeps Gearhart beach from 10th Street north to the jetty of the Columbia River open to vehicles, a 13-mile stretch.

1992 — Kent Smith elected mayor unopposed, a position he is to hold until 2012.

1994 — Gearhart City Council adopts Ordinance No. 691, establishing a transient room tax for the city and procedures for collecting the tax.

1995 — Andrew and Tiffany Wiederhorn revoke an easement to a popular pedestrian path to Little Beach. That action sparks debate, a bitter election battle and years of legal action.

1996 — Gearhart councilors fight a proposed U.S. Highway 101 Parkway, designed to stretch south from the highway’s intersection with Pacific Way in Gearhart through Seaside.

1998 — Members of Gearhart City Council consider septic tank issues to meet concerns from the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.

2004 — Gearhart voters approve a $7 million bond measure for a new water system.

2006 — Gearhart votes no on a $3.75 million general obligation bond measure to replace the firehouse and add a police department and city hall. The vote is 327-231, with 58 percent of residents voting against it.

2007 — Later to be known as the “Great Coastal Gale,” residents are isolated after a storm knocks down thousands of trees and leaves thousands with power, many for more than a week.

2008 — Five people are killed after a small plane crashes into a vacation home in Gearhart in an incident city officials call the “worst event in the city’s history.”

2012 — Mayor Kent Smith celebrates the dedication of the city’s new water system, delayed after the need to return to voters for another $4 million in 2010, stricter arsenic standards by the federal Environmental Protection District and the need to rebid the project’s construction.

2012 — Mayor Dianne Widdop is sworn in after defeating opponent Bob Shortman by five votes in the November election. Widdop was a city councilor 16 years prior to her election.

2013 — Members of the Planning Commission and City Council consider changes to the way short-term rental properties are taxed and regulated within the city.

2014 — Gearhart resident Harold Gable files a prospective petition to remove Mayor Dianne Widdop, citing an “abuse of leadership” and “lack of transparency.”

2015 — Attempted recall election of Mayor Dianne Widdop fails. In a special recall election, residents voted 321-184 against the recall of Widdop.

2015 — Seaside School District voters approve a $99.7 million bond to move schools — including Gearhart Elementary — out of the tsunami zone.

2016 — Gearhart enacts rules limiting and regulating short-term vacation rentals. Council members and supporters say the measure is consistent with the city’s comprehensive plan, provides greater safety for residents and visitors alike, and adds to the region’s stock of long-term housing.

2016 — Matt Brown is elected mayor.

2017 — Supporters of Measure 4-188 seek to repeal and replace short-term rental rules enacted the previous fall. The measure is defeated at the polls.

2018 — Gearhart celebrates 100th anniversary with a year of centennial events.