Lee’s Camp in the 1940s, a few years after Rex Lee built it, with the Burn’s snags on the hills behind; the 1933 Tillamook fire from the air; and a Forest Service album page recording smoke at 40,000 feet. Photos: U.S. Forest Service, public domain.
Our Story
Open since 1939. Reopened in 2025.
Lee's Camp started as a fishing resort. Rex Lee bought sixteen acres of the old Reeher homestead where the North Fork joins the Wilson in 1939, the same summer the second Tillamook Burn swept through these hills. When the post office opened in 1947, the whole bend in the river took his name.
Store, filling station, tavern, post office, motorcycle shop: the building at milepost 24 has been most things a traveler could need. In 2025 Bryan and his wife took it over, filled the shelves again and lit the smoker. The "Lee's Camp Store is back" post said it best.
- 1889James and Jennie Reeher homestead the upper Wilson River.
- 1893A toll wagon road over the Coast Range opens. Fare: $1.50.
- 1933The Tillamook Burn begins. The country around Lee's Camp burns again in 1939, 1945 and 1951.
- 1939Rex Lee buys the land and builds Lee's Wilson River Camp.
- 1941The Wilson River Highway opens on October 15, built largely by WPA crews through the Burn.
- 1947The Lee's Camp post office opens; it runs until 1977.
- 1949–72The Burn is replanted, partly by schoolchildren. It becomes Tillamook State Forest.
- 1980Bill and Jeanie Miles reopen the store and pumps, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days.
- 2025Bryan reopens Lee's Camp Store and lights the smoker.
The road in
Before the highway, Lee's Camp was a long wagon ride from anywhere. From 1936 WPA crews pushed the Wilson River Highway through the burned-over hills, and each summer a caravan of highway officials and boosters drove out from Forest Grove to see the work. A Federal Writers' Project photographer rode along in 1937 and 1938 and again in 1939. Devil's Fork is the Devils Lake Fork, which meets the North Fork here at Lee's Camp; McNamer's Camp stood a few miles upriver. The photos below are from that album.
Photos: Oregon Federal Writers' Project (WPA), 1937–39, courtesy of the State Library of Oregon, W.P.A. Oregon Historical Records Survey, MS-015.
The caravan party at Beaver Creek Summit, 1937.
Burned-over hills at Beaver Creek Summit, 1937.
Beaver Creek construction camp on the new highway, 1937.
The group at the spring, Beaver Creek Camp, 1937.
Devil's Fork of the Wilson River, with the road cut into the hillside above it, 1937.
An Oregon Motor Stages special from Forest Grove at McNamer's Camp, 1938.
The 1938 caravan at McNamer's Camp.
The 1938 caravan lined up at McNamer's Camp.
An Oregon Motor Stages bus coming through McNamer's Cut, 1938.
The caravan party in the brush along the Wilson River, 1938.
The new grade cut into the hillside along the Wilson River, 1938.
Dump truck and power shovel on the Wilson River grade, 1938.
The 1938 caravan lined up on the Wilson River near the tunnel site.
Looking west from the summit over the Burn, 1938.
The caravan's cars and buses in the summit cut, 1938.
McNamer's Camp, 1939.
McNamer's Camp from above, with the caravan parked between the bunkhouses, 1939.
The Wilson River road a short distance from McNamer's Camp, 1939.