Willamette Post was established in December 1813 on a knoll just east of this location by employees of the North West Company, a Montreal based fur-trading company. During the ensuing years the two-room log cabin, also known as Fort Kalapuya, served as a site for trading with the local Indians, the Kalapuyans. It was also a depot for hunting expeditions providing food to Fort George, also known as Fort Astoria, on the Oregon Coast.

The Post was still intact in the late 1820's, as French-Indian families began to settle in the French Prairie Champoeg area. Pierre Bellique, a French Canadian fur trapper turned farmer, and his wife, Genevieve, used the vacated building as a residence beginning in the early 1830's.

ROADSIDE MARKER—
“THE WILLAMETTE STONE” 
This short trail leads to the Willamette Stone, the surveyor’s monument that is the point of origin for all public land surveys in Oregon and Washington. The landmark was established on June 4, 1851 by John B. Preston, Oregon’s first Surveyor General. With increasing settlement and passage of the Donation Land Claim Act, the Oregon Territory desperately needed to extend the Public Land Survey System of 1785 that divided public lands into square miles parcels of 640 acres.

Preston, appointed by President Millard Fillmore, arrived in Oregon in April, 1851. After exploring the area, Preston selected this site so the primary north-south survey line (Willamette Meridian) would pass west of Vancouver Lake and primary east-west survey line (Base Line) would not cross the Columbia River. Preston’s original marker – a wooden stake – was replaced in 1885 by a stone monument which became known as the Willamette Stone.

Captions: (bottom left) Land for Willamette Stone State Park was obtained in 1945 to preserve this historic site. The original stone was vandalized in the 1980s. Today's landmark is a stainless steel cap, with an adjacent bronze plaque depicting the township and range numbering system from the Willamette Meridian and the Base Line.; (bottom center) You are standing at the axis of the meridian and baseline for Oregon and Washington. The Willamette Meridian runs due north to the Canadian border and due south to the California border. The Willamette Base Line runs due east to the Idaho boarder and due west to the Pacific Ocean. These survey lines intersect here at the Willamette Stone. Similar lines have been established throughout the United States.; (top right) From property lines to easements, every land survey in Oregon and Washington since 1851 has been determined in reference to the Willamette Stone. Long survey lines, the Willamette Meridian and the Base Line, were created in order to survey distant portions of these two states.; (bottom right) Meridian and base lines serve as the principal axis of a township (N/S) and range (E/W) system, dividing land into 6 mile square units. Each township and range unit, in turn, contains 36 square mile units called sections. Each square mile section contains 640 acres of land, the maximum amount of land that could be claimed by families for settlement under the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850.

GROUND PLAQUE INSCRIPTION—“WILLAMETTE STONE”
Beginning here, the Willamette Meridian was established running north to Puget Sound and south to the California border, and the Base Line was established running east to the Idaho border and west to the Pacific Ocean.

From the surveyed lines, the lands of the Northwest were divided into townships six miles square beginning at the Willamette Base Line numbering north or south and given a Range beginning at the Willamette Meridian numbering east and west each full township is divided into thirty-six Sections of land one mile squares which are numbered starting at the northeast corner of each Township as shown in the diagram above.
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Dedicated by Governor Victor Atiyeh in honor of National Surveyors Week, March 11-17, 1984. Sponsored by the Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon, the Land Surveyors Association of Washington, the Washington County Surveyors and the Multnomah County Surveyor.

The old Yaquina Bay Lighthouse established in 1871 is the earliest aid to navigation standing within the range of the first recorded landfall made from a ship to the shores of the Pacific Northwest. Captain James Cook made this landfall on March 7, 1778. At noon he named Cape Foulweather. On account of the heavy weather he was compelled to stand out at sea at night and only approach the land in the afternoon so that he was unable to find any harbor along the Oregon Coast.

News of Cook’s voyage to the Pacific Northwest stimulated the American interests in this region and aroused in Thomas Jefferson an interest that led to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the dispatch of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.