Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City History
Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City has been around since 1947 and has a long history within our Community. We have detailed some significant points below.
1947
1952
1957
1965
1975
1987
1999
2000’s
2017
2020
2024
North Lincoln Kiwanis Club is formed encompassing the communities of Taft, Delake, Cutler City, Oceanlake, and Nelscott. Members from surrounding areas such as Depoe Bay, Lincoln Beach, and Gleneden Beach were also part of the club. The chartering members of North Lincoln Kiwanis Club were local business men and clergy. The purpose of the club was youth philanthropy and business networking.
The Pacific Northwest Kiwanis District heavily pushed for the expansion of Key Club(High School Leadership Program) . The North Lincoln club stepped up during this decade to sponsor and mentor local youth initiatives, shifting away from its early post-war focus on business networking.
The club celebrated its 10th anniversary with a massive regional membership drive, cementing its position as one of the premier civic organizations on the central Oregon coast.
The communities of Taft, Oceanlake, Nelscott, Delake, and Cutler City all joined to together to form Lincoln City. Lincoln City quickly became a thriving tourist town with a booming population. During this period, there was no centralized parks department. These factors combined with the youth service boom in the 60’s caused the North Lincoln Kiwanis Club to focus heavily on developing the athletic facilities and recreational fields at Taft High School. They funded safety equipment and built community accessible play facilities.
1975 brought the permanent closure of the beloved Pixieland theme park. The Pixie Kitchen would remain open until its closure in 1985. Years later The Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City would acquire the intellectual property rights and surviving artifacts from the Parks family, working to preserve this whimsical history of Lincoln City. You can still purchase menus, cookbooks, T-shirts, placemats, and post cards from the Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City. Proceeds go to support the clubs efforts to support youth in the community.
Elizabeth Black becomes the first female Kiwanian in the North Lincoln Kiwanis Club. Prior to this date, Kiwanis International had restricted its membership to men exclusively. Today, women serve as members and at all levels of leadership in the organization. 63% of our club membership and roughly 75% of our club leadership is women.
North Lincoln Kiwanis Club becomes the Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City. The change was made to align the clubs identity with the modern municipal name.
The club heavily leaned into a highly successful community newspaper recycling drive. By operating localized drop-off points, the club successfully collected metric tons of paper from coastal residents. The proceeds directly established a stable, self-sustaining financial engine, allowing them to award annual college scholarships to local graduating seniors.
In a move to keep the nostalgia and memories of Pixieland and Pixie Kitchen alive, the Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City launched PixieFest. This was a two day carnival featuring vintage games, Pixie Kitchen recipes, and of course the Pixies. The festival has evolved due to budget constraints and is currently operating as PixieGames at other local events, such as the Kite Festival.
2020 saw lockdowns as the COVID pandemic spread across the world. In Lincoln City, this was going to make the local tradition of the Halloween celebration, dubbed Spooky Spectacular, Vanish. The event has been a staple for the community since its inception in the early 2010’s. the Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City stepped up and partnered with the Lincoln City Outlets to create a drive though Trunk or Treat event to ensure kids could still have a safe and fun Halloween. Many local organizations support this event and the Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City is proud to partner with all of them to continue the tradition today.
In 2019, the Lincoln City Cultural Center broke ground on their Cultural Plaza. A portion of this is the Kiwanis Outdoor Learning Classroom. The completed classroom was unveiled in 2024, featuring a large concrete octopus named Gary, built by Dreamland Skate Parks, and 23 separate mosaic works made by local artist Joanne Daschel.
Pixeland Documentary
