Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge, a small cluster of rocky islands off the northern Oregon coast near Oceanside, became the first National Wildlife Refuge west of the Mississippi River when President Theodore Roosevelt protected it in 1907 after William L. Finley and Herman Bohlman documented the killing of sea lions, seabirds, and eggs there. Despite covering only 15 acres, it is one of the Oregon coast’s most important wildlife sanctuaries, protecting the state’s largest seabird nesting colony, key breeding populations of tufted puffins and common murres, and northern Oregon’s only pupping site for threatened Steller sea lions. It was designated wilderness in 1970.