Nyberg’s Blacksmith Shop 1926-1973

Oscar Nyberg operated his blacksmith shop from this location on the north side of Lake Street from 1926 until 1973. He was born in Finland and came to Naselle in 1909. He specialized in horseshoeing and custom blacksmithing for fishermen, loggers and Peninsula locals. He was the only blacksmith on the Peninsula during this time.

Oscar Nyberg was born in 1885 in Finland, he came to Naselle in 1909 and married Hila Maria Wirkkanen in 1916 at the Naselle Lutheran Church. He and Hila moved to Ilwaco in 1926 when he bought a building for $500.00 from Walter Jennings. He opened the Nyberg Blacksmith Shop in that building, located across from the present-day Museum, and served as the Peninsula's blacksmith until shortly before his death at 85 in 1973. The shop fell into a demise after his death and was razed in the 1980s.

"He was a blacksmith of the old school who learned the art of shoeing horses in his native Finland. He scoffed at modern horse-shoeing techniques stating, "Every horse has its own peculiar gait. Some kick their front hooves with the hind ones or the left ones with the right ones. So when a shoe is made for a horse, it has to be precisely weighted so that when the horse walks or runs, the offending hoof will be pulled away from the hoof that is striking the other one."

Oscar shakes his head when he talks about the present-day shoers of horses. "Why they get a little trailer and go from place to place slapping shoes on horses that do not fit. Instead of fitting the shoe to the hoof, they fit the hoof to the shoe by cutting down the hoof and for that, they get $14.00. I always carefully made the shoe so that it would exactly fit the hoof, and for this, I got $2.50, and $3.00 if the horse was mean." He remembered one $3.00 horse in particular. This was the horse of young Martha Turner (Mrs. Dick Murfin) whose horse had the annoying habit of nipping him on the posterior every time he bent over to shoe the horse. "By golly, people knew when Martha's horse was in the shop because I had some words for that horse."'

Sources: Pacific Tribune, "Village Smithy Keeps Pace with Changing Times" by Larry T. Maxim,

CPHM Resource Files, Obituary.