Rockaway Beach 4th of July Celebration

At 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 4, 2026, the Rockaway Beach parade stepped off on Highway 101. It ran through downtown between North 3rd Avenue and South 3rd Avenue. Six minutes later, by the city’s printed schedule, F-15 Eagle fighter jets flew over. The Chamber of Commerce’s page for the day credits the flyover to the National Guard and lists a bake sale among the day’s events. The Chamber counts “80 Years of Rockaway Fun” and heads the page “Small Town, BIG Fireworks.”

The City of Rockaway Beach hosts and sponsors the parade and a professional fireworks show, and Laura Schmidt coordinates the parade. The county tourism bureau, Visit Tillamook Coast, lists the celebration as presented by the Rockaway Beach Chamber of Commerce. It thanks the city and the Rockaway Beach Volunteer Fire Department for making it possible. The setting, in the bureau’s words, is seven miles of sandy shoreline.

Generations by the Sea

The 2026 theme was “Generations by the Sea - Celebrating 250 Years of Freedom.” The city’s gloss: “From grandparents to grandchildren, our community comes together at the beach to celebrate America’s 250-years of independence.” In 2019 the theme had been “Sand, Sea & Liberty.”

The 2026 Grand Marshal was Barbara Trout, a fourth-generation Rockaway Beach property owner whose family roots go back to the 1920s. She has served 30 years as an elected Tillamook PUD director. She has also given her time to:

• the Neah-Kah-Nie School District Board of Education
• Meals for Seniors
• the Rockaway Beach Parks and Recreation District
• Tillamook Kiwanis
• the Pioneer Museum
• the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center

The Tillamook County Pioneer reported that she grows produce in the community garden and shares it, and that she makes quilts by hand to give away.

The Volunteers of the Year, Leon and Teri Bruneau, have worked with Meals for Seniors since 2013. Teri is board president, and Leon puts in hours on operations, fundraising and cooking. They helped start the Family Fund, which gives local families holiday gifts, meal boxes, utility help in a crisis, and summer lunches for children when school is out.

Dachshunds and a treasure hunt

At 1 p.m. the dachshunds run in the Annual Firecracker Wiener Nationals at Phyllis Baker City Park, with registration from noon. The tourism bureau’s advice to owners is to bring their dogs out to the races. A 2019 account in the Tillamook Headlight Herald describes the dogs running an obstacle course while the Rockaway Lioness sold homemade baked goods and plants nearby.

At 2:45 p.m. the Lions Club holds a treasure hunt and races on the beach behind St. Mary’s Catholic Church on South Pacific Street. In 2019 the Lions billed it as a Fun Day at the Beach, with games, races, the treasure hunt, and hot dogs.

Between events, houses around town are dressed for the Porch Parade, which reached its fifth year in 2026. Entrants decorate porches, driveways, yards and windows, and the city posts every address on an official online map.

Lights out at 9:30

The fireworks begin at 10 p.m. The city’s schedule turns the lights out at 9:30 and names the Wayside, the city center, as the place to watch. The Chamber sends people to the Ocean’s Edge Wayside or the beaches. In 2019 the Headlight Herald reported that the Rockaway Beach Volunteer Fire Department launches the show once it gets dark. It added that Rockaway Beach would be the only community in Tillamook County with an official fireworks show that year.

The same article said sparklers and fireworks could be bought from the Rockaway Lions, the Chamber, or the Neah-Kah-Nie speech team. In June 2026 the city reminded residents and visitors that fireworks are prohibited within city limits. It handed out free “No Fireworks” yard signs at City Hall, three to a resident.

The tourism bureau tells visitors to bring blankets and lawn chairs, to come early for parade viewing and parking, and to book lodging well ahead, since rooms often fill months before the holiday. On July 5 a SOLVE beach cleanup runs from 10 a.m. to noon, with sign-up at the SOLVE table outside the Caboose.

The Daddy Train and Harold’s Club

The Little Red Caboose at the Wayside serves as the Chamber of Commerce office. It was set there as a tribute to the railroad that built the town.

In 1909 George and Robert Watt, Dr. W.C. Hawk and J.D. Bozarth, all of Bay City, formed the Rockaway Beach Company. That August they subdivided the land. The city’s tourism site says the name came from Rockaway Beach on Long Island, New York, and that the town was renamed Rockaway Beach in 1987. Before the railroad, the trip from Portland took two weeks over the Wilson River Trail.

The Chamber and the city’s tourism site both date the first passenger train to Rockaway to 1912. Paul Pintarich, writing in the Tillamook County Pioneer, puts its first run in 1911, behind a steam locomotive whose drive wheels were polished for the occasion. The train left Portland around 9 a.m. and arrived about 2:30 p.m., with an extra engine to help it over the summit of the Coast Range. Mothers and children spent their summers at the beach, and on Friday afternoons the train brought the fathers. People called it the “Daddy-Train.”

After World War I, biplane pilots used the beach as a landing strip and sold rides. The Chamber’s history says the rides stopped right after a plane struck a nun walking on the beach, and that it is not known whether she survived. The Chamber’s historic walking tour describes the town at its turn-of-the-century peak: a Natatorium and Dance Hall, beach bonfires, and a Main Street boardwalk. Along the boardwalk stood general stores and candy stores, a post office, motels, and a pool hall run by Red Headed Ruby, the local bootlegger.

Pintarich’s uncle, Kenneth O. Christensen, was the town’s 10th mayor. Pintarich recalled staying during World War II at what is now the JoMar Motel. He swam in the “Nat” and watched blimps chug overhead looking for enemy submarines, and a loud siren at 10 p.m. ordered beach fires out. He also remembered fireworks “that still bloom and blossom over the beach on the Fourth of July.” On one long-ago Fourth, as the sun went down over the ocean, he was thrown out of Harold’s Club, a tavern known for its “broasted chicken.” The man who threw him out was “Red,” the bartender, and the offense was carrying his beer outside the door.