Long Beach, WA

Long Beach, WA is located in Pacific County on Long Beach Peninsula.  It is the biggest town on the peninsula with a population of 1392 and median income of $23,600 and a median age of 47.  Long Beach began when Henry Harrison Tinker bought a claim for the land from Charlie Reed in 1880.  He platted the town and called it "Tinkerville".  Settlers started coming and then a small railroad was built the ran the whole length of the peninsula.  The train really got the town growing and in 1922 it was incorporated.  It stayed a small but prosperous town with different kind of shops.  Currently it is a tourist town with unique shops and restaurants.  It has a pop culture atmosphere and is home to the World Kite Museum.   It is also home to Jake the Alligator man who is a huge pop cultural phenomenon in the Northwest.  Bumper stickers are seen all through Oregon and Washington.  Jake has a human face but the rest of him is an alligator.
Long Beach is a neat town and there is a lot of "different" shops to visit.  There is a board walk down by the beach that allows some nice views of the beach over the dunes.  We walked the board walk and then visited a unique museum, Marsh's Free Museum.  It is a gift shop with lots of odd items on display.  The items are said to represent the Northwest.  It is full of every "real" stuffed animal you could think of along with some old and kind of odd amusement machines ( slot machines, penny movies, etc.).  It was a beautiful sunny day and after three days of cloudy cool weather it was nice to see the sun.  We took advantage of the nice day and checked out the peninsula.   The town area was really busy but the boardwalk was quiet.  It was a fun place to visit!