Over the past two centuries, Beard's Hollow has changed from a coastal cove with tide pools visited by Chinook Indians for sea life, shells, tools, and decorations into a privately owned campground with ocean access for swimming and fishing, then a site where nearby basalt cliffs were quarried for construction materials, and after the Columbia River jetties were built from 1885 to 1915, the cove filled in and became the wetland seen today; when the Lewis and Clark Expedition explored the area in 1805, the ocean waves reached a quarter mile to the left, and Washington State Parks has managed the site since 1982.