The Salt Makers in Seaside in 2013.

Historians and historical interpreters are back in Seaside to celebrate one of Seaside’s most historic moments. 

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, the Lewis and Clark Salt Makers will return to Seaside to spend a day making salt on the beach just off Avenue U and the Prom.

This day-long re-enactment of five members of Lewis and Clark’s expedition party making their own salt after their last supply of salt from St. Louis ran out kicks off a six-day national conference of the 50th annual meeting of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.

According to John Orthmann of the Pacific Northwest Living Historians, interpreters from the Pacific Northwest Living Historians will bring to life the salt camp that existed in Seaside for several months when Lewis and Clark explorers established camp here 212 years ago.

According to historical record, on Dec. 28, 1805, Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Capt. William Clark sent forth a special five man detachment from their just-completed winter quarters at Fort Clatsop. The men traveled overland from the fort along the coast, searching for the best location to make salt. On Jan. 1, 1806, the fifth day of their search, they located an ideal position, the beach of present-day Seaside, where they set up camp. Along with several other men who rotated in and out of the salt camp, this detachment made salt by boiling water for nearly two months, enduring wet winter weather, before taking up all the salt they made, and returning to Fort Clatsop.

Larry McClure of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Oregon Chapter, said this isn’t the first time a re-enactment of this type has taken place in Seaside.

“The interpreters from the Pacific Northwest Living Historians are really committed people,” McClure said. “Of course they’re not the same age as the men in the expedition who were probably in their 20s and 30s.”

The historians will set up on the evening of Oct. 5, with fires through the weekend. “They’ll be boiling the water and dipping it up.” After salt is made, the interpreters will stage a presentation of the salt to Captain Lewis at Fort Clatsop.

On any ordinary day, tourists walking the south portion of the Prom stop and look at the Oregon State Parks sign about the Lewis and Clark Expedition salt making, with the heading, “A convenient place for making salt.” The salt, they learn from reading the sign, was used to flavor and make more palatable the diet the men were eating, which, to a large degree, was made up of things they caught.

McClure said he anticipated 200 members of the Trail Heritage Foundation are expected to attend the six-day national conference. “Every year they meet along the Lewis and Clark Trail,” he said.

Last year, the group met in Billings, Montana, and next year, in St. Louis. This is the first time the meeting has been in Astoria since 1974, McClure said.

The day of salt making is free and open to the public. It’s happening in collaboration with the Seaside Museum and Historical Society; Seaside Public Works; the Clatsop County Work Crew; The Tides By The Sea Motel and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.

“The salt making is the grand opening of the conference,” McClure said. “Everybody loves to see the reenactment.”