The Seaside Aquarium is a privately owned aquarium

Aquarium

An aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...

 in Seaside, Oregon

Seaside, Oregon

Seaside is a city in Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. The name Seaside is derived from Seaside House, a historic summer resort built in the 1870s by railroad magnate Ben Holladay. The city's population was 6,457 at the 2010 census.-History:...

, United States. It is one of the oldest aquariums on the West Coast

West Coast of the United States

West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

.

History

The building where the aquarium is located was built initially as a natatorium

Natatorium

A natatorium is a term given for a building containing a swimming pool. In Latin, a cella natatoria was a swimming pool in its own building, although it is sometimes also used to refer to any indoor pool even if not housed in a dedicated building...

 in the 1920s, an indoor saltwater

Seawater

Seawater is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% . This means that every kilogram of seawater has approximately of dissolved salts . The average density of seawater at the ocean surface is 1.025 g/ml...

 public bath, with the water pumped from the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 through a pipe still visible today at the tide line, and then heated. It featured balconies where people could watch others swim in the pool below. A decade later, the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 broke its economic feasibility. The building later served as a salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

 rearing facility, and then a place to watch wrestling

Wrestling

Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...

 matches. The aquarium was founded in 1937, making it one of the oldest in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It uses the same pipe that was installed in the 1920s to fill the aquarium tanks.

Features

The Seaside Aquarium reports 100 species of marine life including 20-"arm" sea stars, crab

Crab

True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...

s, wolf eel

Wolf eel

The wolf eel is a member of the family Anarhichadidae together with the wolffishes of the genus Anarhichas. The wolf eel is monotypic within the genus Anarrhichthys. This superficially eel-like fish feeds on crustaceans, sea urchins, mussels, clams and some fishes, crushing them with its strong jaws...

s, moray eel

Moray eel

Moray eels are cosmopolitan eels of the family Muraenidae. The approximately 200 species in 15 genera are almost exclusively marine, but several species are regularly seen in brackish water and a few, for example the freshwater moray can sometimes be found in freshwater...

s, and octopuses. The Seaside Aquarium established the first program to breed harbor seal

Harbor Seal

The harbor seal , also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere...

s in captivity and allows visitors the chance to feed its seals.