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
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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-
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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
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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
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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-
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with the elk.
“It’s just dangerous all the
way around,” Workman said.
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