OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2016
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
Submitted Photo
10 years ago this week — 2006
An ordinary grocery shopping trip took a serpentine twist last week for
Warrenton resident Sherry Hart and her teenage granddaughter.
“This lady was freaking out next to her car,” says Will Brinkerhoff, 17, an
employee at the North Coast Fred Meyer.
And no wonder.
Two large snakes were reclining on the back of Hart’s 1986 two-tone
blue Buick Park Avenue, where none had been before.
Recognizing the granddaughter, 17-year-old Paige Hart, as a classmate
from Warrenton High School, Brinkerhoff gallantly stepped forward to
assist the two damsels in distress.
He pulled up the loor mat and saw “more and more and more and more
snakes,” he says, including a giant one under the passenger seat.
Eventually more than 20 garter snakes were found inside the car, some pen-
cil-thin and one the diameter of a quarter and 3 feet long.
Noticing the reptilian ruckus, several customers and another Fred Meyer
employee, Taylor Hageman, 17, pitched in to help. One man dumped out his
groceries and gave Hart the plastic bags they’d been packed in so she could
ill them with snakes.
Soon Warrenton police oficer Jim Gaebel arrived on scene and opined,
according to Brinkerhoff, that one snake must have gotten into the car and
had babies.
A lot of babies.
But Hart thinks someone played a prank on her.
“Who did it? We don’t know,” she says. She believes her car was chosen
because a window stuck in the open position made it an easy target.
For Hart and her granddaughter, the experience was far from over. They
still had to drive home.
Hart says she told Paige, “You watch for snakes and I’ll drive,” and urged
her to stay calm. “I drove home, parked the car, and as soon as I got out, two
snakes fell out of the dashboard right where my feet were,” Hart says.
The next day, after a friend pulled off some paneling inside the car, they
found yet another big snake. The day after that, three more snakes emerged
from her car’s innards. One of them bit her as she was pulling it out of the
dashboard.
A week after the fateful shopping trip, the Buick remains in the driveway.
“I haven’t driven it yet. I come out and check it periodically,” Hart says.
And she has some practical advice for others. “If your window’s broken, get
it ixed.”
50 years ago — 1966
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
Mark Hatfield’s administrative assistant Warne Nunn (left), Dr.
E.W. Harvey of the Oregon Otter Trawl commission (center) and
state Rep. William Holmstrom were among dignitaries to ob-
serve the Russian fleet operating 15 miles off Westport, Wash.
St. Helens and Portland might become salt water ports if a
major Northwest — Southwest water transfer proposal materi-
alizes, Secretary of State Tom McCall said here.
McCall, Republican candidate for governor, was grand mar-
shal for St. Helens’ annual Port O’ Fun Festival.
“If the Colorado Basin proposal in Congress becomes law,”
McCall said, “it could mean an annual diversion of 8.5 million
acre feet of Columbia River water — enough to bring ocean salt
more than 60 miles upstream from the Columbia’s mouth.”
A trafic volume exceeding that of last summer by substantial amounts
has swamped the ferry service here, and probably was a factor in speeding
up work of getting the Astoria Bridge ready to carry trafic.
The State Highway Commission has approved the name
“Astoria Bridge” as the oficial title of the trans-Columbia river
span between Astoria, Ore., and Point Ellice, Wash.
The 4.1-mile bridge, which cost more than $24 million, will be
oficially dedicated in ceremonies Aug. 27.
75 years ago — 1941
Leo Arany, Astoria airport master, today announced that the Clatsop
County Aviation association has suspended lying on the local airport pend-
ing completion of adequate ground space.
He said that it may be from six to eight weeks before lying may be
resumed at the local airport.
The Knappton mill, its yard ofice, oil house, ofice building
and more than 1,000,000 feet of cut lumber were wiped out by
a ierce blaze of unknown origin, which was irst detected in the
boiler room and under the mill at about 10 a.m. today.
Two hours later, when the Coast Guard tender Manzanita
arrived to save the outer section of docks, the ire had roared
through the old mill, which was built by a pioneer operator by
the name of Simpson in 1868. Water from the mill’s own tank was
drained early when the main was caught in the rapid spread of ire.
Earth slippage at Ecola State Park in 1961. The landslides moved parking areas and parts of roadways.
Celebrating those who built
the roads, dug the rock
SOUTHERN
EXPOSURE
B y
R.J.
M aRx
A
uthor Deb Cuyle is fascinated
by the crunch of gravel and
the movement of rock, the play
of mountains and tides as they
shaped Cannon Beach. Her history
focuses less on the cultural and
social life — so well documented
in Peter Lindsey’s “Coming in
Over the Rock” and Terence
O’Donnell’s magical “Cannon
Beach: A Place by the Sea” than
on the men who blasted rock and
dared landslides to create a post-
card city with international appeal.
This entry in Arcadia Books’
Images of America series zeros in
on the geography and the particular
challenges Cannon Beach, Tolovana
and Arch Cape faced in early days,
bringing to life the hairpin turns of a
logging truck coming down a steep
curve and the superhuman efforts of
highway department workers as they
Submitted Photo
dug through mud and downpours to
excavate thousands of yards of dirt Workers in 1936 at work on the Arch Cape Tunnel.
building the tunnel in 1936.
tlers had to endure, and
Eberman regularly spotted
the incredible amount of
“When people today drive to a cannon in a creek as they
hard work involved, the
Cannon Beach via Highway 26 drove cattle to Tillamook.
more I realized that the
from Portland or the road from Can- Retrieval of the weapon
area has tugged at people’s
non Beach to Seaside, it is hard to didn’t come until January
imagine those roads were once just 1898, when a mail carrier
hearts since it was irst dis-
muddy paths,” Cuyle said in a phone named George Luce found
covered,” Cuyle said. “I
interview.
and retrieved the cannon
wanted people to discover
Cuyle, a former Cannon Beach from which Cannon Beach
how the very important
resident, is the author of “Kid- derives its name.
road systems and land
Author
ding Around Portland: What to Do,
“Remittance men” —
developments for Cannon
Where to Go, and How to Have Fun sons of wealthy English- Deborah Cuyle Beach were established.”
in Portland” and “Haunted Snohom- men who came to Cannon
The highway from
ish,” an Arcadia book paying tribute Beach to work though still receiv- Portland to Cannon Beach, orig-
to the supernatural side of Snohom- ing money from home — comprised inally the Wolf Creek Highway
ish, Washington, where she resides.
many of the 50 families occupying and now the Sunset Highway, was
“This project was kind of a labor the 90-mile stretch of land between built between 1933 and 1936 by
of love,” Cuyle said. “When I was Tillamook Mountain and Neah- the labor of the Civilian Conserva-
going to Cannon Beach, I noticed kahnie Mountain in the late 1800s, tion Corps and the Works Progress
there wasn’t a history book. So I Cuyle writes.
Administration in the aftermath of
came back and talking to Arca-
She presents the old days of the Great Depression. “It would take
dia. ‘Why haven’t you done Can- horse-drawn carriages, summer tent days to get from Portland to Can-
non Beach, it’s the best place in the camps, clearing of the land, the irst non Beach,” Cuyle said. “Now, we
world?’ They’re like, ‘We’ve been hotels and automobiles.
do it in 45 minutes with a stop at
thinking about that for 10 years.’ So
In 1891, James P. Austin built 7-Eleven.”
again, I asked, ‘Well why hasn’t any- the Austin House, which was both a
Cuyle hopes to bring readers
body done it?’”
hotel and a post ofice. More lodg- “back and make them remember
Cuyle’s persistence paid off and ings followed. The Hotel Bill was what it was like,” she said. Equal
after preparing a proposal earned a constructed in 1904, the Warren measure is given to the development
contract with the Images of Amer- Hotel in 1911 and the Ecola Inn in of Arch Cape, Hug Point and Ecola
ica series. “When I lived in Cannon 1913.
State Park, with dramatic photos
Beach I fell in love with it,” Cuyle
While variously called Seal Rock, of a 1961 mudslide, or “earth slip-
said. “It is hard not to. The way the Ecola Creek, Silver Point Cliffs and page.” “I am sure the book is not
town is preserved and presented Brighton Beach, the Cannon Beach perfect and was really just a labor
is absolutely stunning. I wanted to name became oficial in 1955.
of my love for Cannon Beach, but
learn more about its history and the
Pictures bear witness to the Her- I do hope it will bring happiness to
founding fathers who so eagerly culean efforts of construction teams all who read it,” Cuyle said. “And
wanted to develop the area.”
as workers work nonstop during when they are sitting with their toes
She launches her journey in rainstorms in mud and falling rock. in the warm sand nestled by a beach
1846, when Lt. Neil Howison sailed And their ingenuity. A photo of the ire, I hope they will try to remem-
the USS Shark into the mouth of 1936 creation of the Arch Cape ber how Cannon Beach got to where
the Columbia River. When the tunnel shows a beached bulldozer it is today and some of these photo-
ship encountered trouble, Howison dragged by the drums and cables of graphs and information will stick in
ordered the masts to be chopped off a “gas donkey,” a contraption more their minds.”
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s
and the cannons pushed overboard commonly used to pull logs from the
South County reporter and editor of
to lighten the ship, dropping the can- woods.
nons into the sea. In the 1860s, John
“The more I learned about the tri- the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach
Hobson and his business partner M. als and tribulations these early set- Gazette.