Wild Mare Campground

Tucked among shore pine, Douglas fir and huckleberry, Wild Mare is part of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. The 12-site campground is located along the central Oregon coast, 22 miles south of the town of Reedsport, and 2 miles north of Coos Bay. The year-round campground is equipped with drinking water, vault toilets, a picnic area, trash bins and recycling receptacles. Horses are welcome in the 12 corrals provided. Head to Horsfall Campground for the use of token operated showers.

Some parts of the dunes are designated for hiking and horseback riding only, while off-road vehicle enthusiasts can roam free on the dunes north of the campground. Horse campers come here to explore the Wild Mare Horse Trail which begins at the Wild Mare Day Use under a canopy of alder and spruce, and then emerges into an open dune area that crosses down to the beach.

History of the Wild Mare

In the mid-twentieth century, the Nels Peterson family of Coos County, Oregon raised livestock, providing animals for rodeos. They leased property for grazing, including the dunes along ocean beaches.

In 1954 they took a group of horses to the dunes. One horse was a year-old filly. A year later, when the Petersons weren’t able to use that area any longer, they rounded up the horses to transport them to another place. As the animals were being herded into a corral, the filly, then two years old, jumped over the eight-foot fence and ran into the dunes.

The Petersons tried many times to catch her, even using relay teams to run her down, but she always escaped. After an announcement that anyone could have the horse if they could catch her, other people tried. But her brown coloring was good camouflage and her splayed hoofs enabled her to run through woods, water, wet sand, and steep-sided dunes.

Known as the Wild Mare, she survived without human help and lived wild and free for thirty-two years. A local legend, she has been celebrated in prose, poetry, song, and in the naming of the Siuslaw National Forest campground at Horsfall Beach, north of Coos Bay.

Source: Caldera, Melody J., Editor, South Slough Adventures: Life on a Southern Oregon Estuary, Coos Bay, Oregon: South Coast Printing, Inc., 1995; U. S. Forest Service, Reedsport, Oregon

At a Glance