41st Infantry Division

US 26 was the Wolf Creek Highway until January 17, 1946, when the state highway commission renamed it for the division this rest area honors. The division took its name from its shoulder patch, a setting sun, for the westernmost states its first troops came from. Commissioner Chessman, proposing the change, liked that the name also fit a road toward the setting sun, and noted that Oregon had too many places called Wolf Creek. The division sailed for Australia in early 1942, among the first American divisions sent overseas, and earned the name Jungleers in New Guinea.

What the plaque says

41st Infantry Division (Sunset) This rest area is dedicated in honor of the 41st Infantry (Sunset) Division. This division was organized for World War I in 1917 at Camp Greene, North Carolina and was demobilized at Camp Dix, New Jersey in 1919. It was reorganized and federally recognized at Portland, Oregon in 1930. The division was mobilized for World War II 16 September, 1940, and campaigned in Papua, New Guinea, Luzon and the Southern Philippines. It was inactivated in December, 1945 in Japan. The Sunset Division was reactivated in 1947 and reorganized as the 41st Infantry Brigade, Oregon Army National Guard 1 March, 1968. Lineage and honors previously awarded the 41st (Sunset) Infantry Division were transferred to the brigade.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tillamook Creamery — 29 mi
  A farmer-owned cheese plant that exists because Tillamook Bay had no good way out, and whose logo is the schooner the settlers built to make one.
• Fort Clatsop — 31 mi
  The log post the Corps of Discovery named for its neighbors, and left to the Clatsop headman Coboway five days after stealing one of his people's canoes.

More markers nearby

• The Tillamook Burn — steps away