Chetlo Harbor

Chetlo Harbor is a vanished settlement tucked into the southeast corner of Willapa Bay at the mouth of the Naselle River, along the southwest coast of Washington State in Pacific County. Over its lifetime it went by several names — Cougar Bend, Napoleon, and Stanley among them — before fading from the map entirely. At its busiest, the community held around 50 residents.

The settlement supported a salmon fishery and canning operation, a logging operation, and a mining company at various points in its history. The name Chetlo, sometimes spelled Jetlo, comes from a Chinook Jargon word for oyster — a fitting linguistic echo of the bay-edge environment that shaped life here.

Visitors today come to a quiet, marshy estuary landscape rather than any preserved townsite. Little if anything survives above ground from the settlement itself. The appeal is primarily the remote coastal setting, the tidal flats of Willapa Bay, and the chance to stand at a spot with an unexpectedly layered past. Access to this low-lying area can be difficult in wet months, and the Pacific County winters are rainy and rough — late spring through early fall offers the most practical window for a visit.