About The Church:

The Pioneer Presbyterian Church on Clatsop Plains has played its part in the beginnings of Western America. The Lower Columbia area has many "firsts" in its history: Robert Gray (1792) was the first over the bar of the "River of the West" and named it the "Columbia" after his American ship out of Boston; Lewis and Clark (1805-1806) were the first to cross the American continent by land and wintered at Fort Clatsop, located only a few miles from our church; John Jacob Astor (1810) sent out expeditions both by land and by sea to establish the first American settlement on the Pacific Coast, named "Astoria".

Our church itself is the oldest Presbyterian Church in continuous existence west of the Rocky Mountains. We were not first, but earlier Presbyterian churches did not last: the Whitman Mission (1836) located near Walla Walla, Washington, was destroyed forever with the Indian massacre of 1847; another Presbyterian church was founded at Oregon City (1844), but became a Congregational Church after the California Gold Rush. So we remain the oldest Presbyterian church in existence in the far Western United States.

Pioneer Presbyterian Church on Clatsop Plains continues to proclaim the faith of its founding members who lived over 150 years ago. It is the same faith that focuses on the love of God expressed in the life, death, and resurrection of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who "is the same yesterday and today and forever." "Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith"