Unique Venues: Pirate Palace

Tucked along Oregon’s South Coast in Coos Bay stands one of the Pacific Northwest’s most iconic high school gymnasiums: the Pirate Palace.

Constructed in 1952, the Palace has served Marshfield High School and thousands of other Oregonians for nearly 75 years.

In an era of modern, multi-court complexes and expansive athletic centers, the Pirate Palace remains proudly traditional. The gym features midcentury architecture with steep grandstands. The intimate design places fans almost directly on top of the action and was intended to make the Palace a tough, intimidating place to play high school basketball. The venue seats about 4,000 spectators.

The compact design also amplifies crowd noise, creating a playoff-like intensity even during regular-season contests, school officials said. On rivalry nights, the gym becomes a sea of coordinated student sections, with Marshfield’s purple and gold prominent.

Over the decades, the Pirate Palace has been home to multiple state championship teams and has hosted numerous Oregon School Activities Association state tournaments and playoff contests. Marshfield has served as a site host for the state finals for boys basketball 26 times and girls basketball 17 times, including each year since 2011 for the girls. In addition, the Pirate Palace has served as a state championship site for volleyball in each of the past two school years.

Generations of student-athletes have competed beneath its lights, building a tradition that stretches from the early postwar years to today’s modern era of high school athletics.

Marshfield won boys state basketball championships in 1947 and 1953 – the year after the Pirate Palace was built – and was runner-up in 1949, 1959, 1960, 1962 and 2025. The girls basketball team won the Class 4A state title in 2019 and the Class 4A state volleyball titles in 2022 and 2024.

School officials characterized the venue as “a living museum of community pride.”

Jordan Morey is manager of communications and media relations at the NFHS.