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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 25, 2016)
2C THE DAILY ASTORIAN FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2016 HISTORIC PHOTOS OF THE WEEK Photos courtesy of Cannon Beach History Center and Museum The Arch Cape Tunnel. The Arch Cape Tunnel By ELAINE TRUCKE Special to The Daily Astorian S ince its beginning, Arch Cape has been isolated. The natural barriers of the Tillamook h eadland, Hug Point, the Arch Cape headland and Neahkahnie Mountain made it almost impossible to build a road following the coast. Early settlers would use the beach as a highway, and in the 1910 s the roadbed around Hug Point was blasted out, which made the commute between Cannon Beach and Arch Cape easier. At that time, there was still no road to travel to and from Arch Cape, and it wasn’t until 1916 that a surfaced road led into Seaside from Astoria. I n 1919, legislation passed for the construc- tion of a coast highway from Astoria to California. The highway known as U.S. Highway 101 was completed in 1936 shortly before tunnel construc- tion began. In a 1978 oral history conversation with Ed Carlson, he mentioned the dif¿ culty of getting to and from Arch Cape and Cannon Beach, saying that, “before the tunnel was built, when our kids were small, we used to go around to (Highway) 26 and, I think, (High- way) 30, and go around Mohler to Wheeler and drive way up on Neah- kahnie Mountain, and that was as far as you could go. We had to drive 40 miles to get up there and (we) were only 15 miles from Cannon Beach!” In 1936, a contract by the Oregon h ighway d epartment had authorized construction of .62 miles of highway roadbed that included 1,227.1 feet of tunnel, 26 feet wide and 23 feet high at Arch Cape. Part of the contract included con- struction of a pile trestle bridge with a concrete deck that would be 166 feet in length. A tunnel was then blasted through the ridge of Arch Cape and high steel bridges were erected to span Arch Cape Creek, Short Sand Creek, and Necarney Creek. The h ighway d epartment set the completion date for Dec. 31 , 1936, but because of heavy rains, mud, inexpe- rienced supervision, improper equip- ment, and delay in getting the timber that was used for the lining delivered to the job site, they had extended the completion date to February 1938. However, it wasn’t until March 1940 that all of the work was completed, which included replacing some of the treated timber and installing the curbs, gutters, concrete sills, and pavement. Elaine Trucke is the executive director of the Cannon Beach History Center and Museum. Keep it down ? S ometimes you just need a little sleep. Like the woman in Warrenton who called emergency dispatch for help because her boyfriend would not let her go to sleep. Or the person disturbed by a party in a Seaside hotel room. You need sleep. How else will you have the energy to dance drunk in the middle of the street in Astoria on a Sunday afternoon?. 9-1-WHAT? THE BEST OF THE WORST CALLS TO ASTORIA 911 DISPATCH Follow reporter Kyle Spurr on his 9-1-What? Twitter watch, where a few of the sometimes head-scratching calls to area dispatch take center stage. The full feed is at www.twitter.com/9_1_WHAT. W hile other n ew spa pers give you less, The D a ily Astoria n GIVES YOU From left: H illa ry Borru d , M a teu sz Perk ow sk i, Pa ris Achen O u r n ew M ORE C APITAL B UREAU covers the sta te for you
