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10A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2016 Exhibit: About $2 million is needed to update exhibits, building Continued from Page 1A it worked out well that it was unveiled during Black History Month. The exhibit will be up until April. In her research, Fukami found many stories about York. He risked his life to VDYH&ODUNIURPDÀDVKÀRRG on the Missouri River. York and Clark were about the same age. Along the jour- ney, Native American tribes showed a great interest and respect toward York, hav- ing never seen a black man before. At the exhibit, quotes about York from the jour- nals are printed out for visi- tors to take home with them. One excerpt from Septem- ber 1804 states, “This day we saw several gangs or herds, of buffaloe on the sides of the hills: One of our hunt- ers killed one, and Captain Clarke’s black servant killed two.” His voice counted After reading the journal entries and viewing the art- ists’ interpretations of York, the park wants visitors to ask themselves what they think York’s journey was like as a member of the expedition. One of York’s best known moments on the expedi- tion occurred on the Lower Columbia River. The Corps was barely sur- viving on the north side of the river in 1805. The mem- bers held a vote to decide Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Different depictions of York in art are on display in the visitor center at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. where they should camp for the winter. It included the vote of York and Sacagawea, the bilingual Shoshone woman who accompanied the expedition. With York’s input, the Corps moved to Fort Clatsop. The inclusion did not change his status with the Corps, but it did show his voice counted. “Once again, the story that the journal gives us is a sense of what happens when you take an African-Ameri- can slave and his owner out of the institution of slavery and put them on this jour- ney,” Fukami said. Expanding the experience The exhibit is accompa- nied by a permanent display titled “A Man Named York” in the park’s visitor center. work would begin in Scott Tucker, about three years. Lewis and Clark The visitor cen- National Historical ter lacks interactive Park superintendent, exhibits that attract said he submitted a the younger genera- funding request this tion, Tucker said. In month to the National Scott addition, not all of Park Service to Tucker the park’s collections upgrade the aging vis- are being displayed itor center. About $2 million is needed to update since the visitor center does the exhibits and the building not have the right lighting for itself, Tucker said. If funded, certain artifacts. Funding would help expand York’s story at the park, and how the entire Corps connects with the local area, Tucker said. “One of the goals at the park is to create that next generation of visitor,” he said. “Finding ways for peo- ple to further explore and expand their experience.” The National Park Ser- vice is celebrating its cen- tennial anniversary this year. As a part of the celebra- tion, Tucker said, national parks are focused on attract- ing more younger, diverse people. For the second year, Lewis and Clark National Histor- ical Park will hire a Latino heritage intern through the Environment for the Ameri- cas. The intern will help lead summer camps, which host students from the Northwest Regional Migrant Education program. ³:H DUH ¿QGLQJ ZD\V IRU everyone in the community to connect with the resources we have,” Tucker said. Since the York exhibit went up, Fukami said, it has been received well by the public. The park rangers are pleased to see people inter- acting with the exhibit, and learning more about York. At the end of each day, the rangers replace the printed quotes about York that visi- tors take home with them. “They just hold on to it,” Fukami said. “They take a piece of York with them.” Early African-Americans charted course in Clatsop City leader, actress and entrepreneur left their marks By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian The manila folder titled “African Americans” at the Clatsop County Heritage Cen- ter is millimeters thick, attest- ing to the decidedly mono- chromatic populace. But among the more nota- ble early black residents were an actress, a local oyster pro- SULHWRU DQG SRVVLEO\ WKH ¿UVW HOHFWHG EODFN RI¿FHKROGHU LQ Oregon. Roscoe Lee Dixon Badger serviced local roads, maintained properties and ran vacation cabins, renting to white visitors until the Pub- lic Accommodations Bill in 1953 desegregated businesses in Oregon. A city councilor According to his 1953 obit- Gearhart was home to the ¿UVWEODFNPDQWRKROGSXEOLF uary for William Badger in RI¿FHLQ2UHJRQDFFRUGLQJWR the Seaside Signal, the couple the book “Gearhart Remem- ran Badger’s Chicken Dinner bered” by the Gearhart Home- Inn for 17 years near Gearhart Junction. At the county heri- owners Association. A railway conductor from tage center, attached to a sign Cedarville, Iowa, William for Badger’s, was another for Samuel Badger arrived with a nearby all-white restaurant, his wife, Emma Badger, in the White Way, opened seem- what was then Gearhart Park ingly in protest by Clifford Johnson. in 1915. “No one would sell any- thing in Gearhart to a black Socialist songstress man, so he went across the Plenty set Rosa Lemberg road onto county land, and he apart in early 20th century Asto- bought a two-wheel cart,” said ria. According to “Rosalia,” a James Whitcomb Brougher book on her life by author Arvo Jr., an area resident at the time Lindewall, Lemberg was born describing Badger’s self-pow- Rosa Emilia Clay in 1875, the ered buggy for transporting illegitimate daughter of an Ara- bian-Namibian woman and a passengers from the station. In 1922, Badger ran unsuc- vice governor of British south- cessfully for Gearhart City west Africa. Raised in a Finnish mis- Council, during the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan. He lost, but sionary school in Namibia as ran again and was elected in a child, Lemberg immigrated as a teenager to Finland, where 1934 and 1936. From the 1920s into the VKH EHFDPH RQH RI LWVV ¿UVW ’40s, according to the book, African-born citizens, before immigrating to New York City in 1904. She married a trav- eling theater director, Lauri Lemberg, and moved to Iron- wood, Michigan, and then Astoria’s Finn Town in the 1910s. Her husband eventually left for another job in California, and Rosa Lemberg, by then with a daughter, Mirja, and son, Orvo, became the drama and choir director for the Asto- ria Finnish Socialist Club. In his book on the history of Finnish community halls, Reino Hannula mentioned Rosa Lemberg living in Asto- ria in 1915 as the club’s theater director. He credited her “with WKH WUHPHQGRXV LQÀXHQFH WKDW the little theatre had on the West Coast Finns.” After being offered a teach- ing job for $85 a month — twice what she made in Astoria — Rosa Lemberg left Astoria for Washington. She eventu- ally settled in the Great Lakes region, died and was buried in Covington, Michigan, in 1959. Photo courtesy of Clatsop County Historical Society African immigrant and Finnish Socialist Rosa Lemberg, front and center, was an accom- plished actress and songstress who spent time in Astoria in the early 20th century. Dixon eventually married The- resa Antoinette Townes. “I think there was a hotel in conjunction with this oyster house, and on his ledger were the names of many prominent men,” one of the Flowers sis- ters said in the interview, add- ing the hotel served members of the powerful British com- Roscoe’s oysters %DGJHUZDVQ¶WWKH¿UVWEODFN PRGLWLHV ¿UP %DOIRXU *XWK- rie & Co. entrepreneur in the county. “My father lost his business Roscoe Lee Dixon oper- ated Roscoe’s Oyster House in because the railroad … head- quarters did not come to Asto- Astoria into the 1880s. Dixon was born in Virginia ria,” she said. “I understand in 1843, according to an inter- many people went broke at that view in 1974 with his daugh- time. And so then he went to ters, Mabel and Myrtle Flow- Seattle.” By 1890, Dixon had moved ers, by Washington State University researchers for the to Seattle, where he died in Black Oral History Collection. 1916. He eventually left on the Underground Railroad to Bed- ford, Massachusetts, before moving to Oregon, then Asto- ria, where he was listed in an 1880 census as a single restau- rant-keeper. According to the Oregon Historical Society, An early glass-plate negative shows Emma Badger, co-owner of Badger’s Chicken Dinner Inn and wife of former Gearhart City Coun- cilor William Badger. Photo courtesy of the Clatsop County Heritage Center Elk: Residents who violate RUGLQDQFHFRXOGIDFH¿QHV and feed ducks and use feed- ers for songbirds or squirrels, “I think we only encour- provided that the feeders are age them by certain resi- reasonably designed to avoid dents wanting to give them attracting wildlife. Last September, a bull food,” Warrenton Mayor Mark Kujala said Tuesday night after elk went after a Hammond the City Commission gave ini- man, knocking him to the tial approval to the ordinance. ground. The same aggressive “Absolutely try to refrain from elk chased a teenage girl. An RI¿FHU ZLWK WKH 2UHJRQ 6WDWH feeding the wildlife.” The ordinance would clas- Police Fish and Wildlife Divi- sify attracting or feeding wild- sion tracked the elk and shot life as a public nuisance. and killed the animal. Another elk later blocked Residents who violate the ordi- QDQFHFRXOGIDFH¿QHVRIXSWR a teenage girl and her younger brother from a school bus stop $250 for each offense. Residents could still go out in Hammond. Continued from Page 1A Last May, an elk charged a Gearhart woman who was on a hike. Despite the danger, many see the elk as friendly and endearing. Warrenton Police Chief Mathew Workman described one woman who would drive her vehicle into an elk herd and feed the animals through her window, allowing some elk to stick their heads inside. Others have been seen tak- LQJSLFWXUHV²HYHQVHO¿HV² with the elk. “It’s just dangerous all the way around,” Workman said. Get your copy today! 2 0 1 6 DiscoverOurCoast.com EDITION
