History of the U.S. Coast Guard

This mural depicting a 36-foot motor lifeboat graced the former Coast Guard building in Bandon. It was painted by K.L. Jones in 1971.

The U.S. Coast Guard is the oldest continuous seagoing service in the United States.

Coast Guard Day is held every August 4 to commemorate the founding of the United States Coast Guard as the Revenue Marine on August 4, 1790, by then-Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, according to Wikipedia. On that date, U.S. Congress, guided by Hamilton, authorized the building of a fleet of the first ten Revenue Service cutters, whose responsibility would be enforcement of the first tariff laws enacted by the U.S. Congress under the U.S. Constitution.

The laws authorized the construction of 10 revenue cutters and the personnel to man them.

“The whole point was the fledgling nation needed an influx of money, so the revenue cutters were there to prevent smuggling and other illegal activities to make sure the country was getting what it was owed,” according to a published interview in 2022 with Commander Michael Baird of Sector North Bend.

The U.S. Coast Guard, as it is known today, wasn’t created until 1915 when the Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Lifesaving Service merged.

“The merge created the U.S. Coast Guard,” Baird said, adding that the Coast Guard was then merged with the Lighthouse Service in 1939 and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Marine Navigation in 1946.

Because the Coast Guard comprises so many other services, Baird said it is the reason for the Coast Guard’s 11 statutory missions.

“We don’t do just one thing,” he said.

Those 11 missions are: Port and Waterway Security, Drug Interdiction, Aids to Navigation, Search and Rescue, Living-Marine Resources, Marine Safety, Defense Readiness, Migrant Interdiction, Marine Environmental Protection, Ice Operations, and Law Enforcement.

In addition, Baird said the Coast Guard has been part of every major conflict that the U.S. has fought.

“We’ve had people serve in every major war,” he said. “We’re at all times a military service. We’re part of the Department of Homeland Security to help us maintain our law enforcement aspects.”

Specific to the Oregon Coast, Sector North Bend was officially established in 2013. Prior to that it was Group North Bend, established in 1968.

“(But) when you look at North Bend’s Area of Operation, you can trace Coast Guard roots to 1870 with the Cape Blanco Lighthouse and 1878 with the first lifeboat station (which) was established in Coos Bay,” Baird said. “We changed to a sector because in order to better conduct our missions, we transitioned from groups to air sectors. A lot of titles changed over the years, but our presence and primary mission hasn’t changed too much.”

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