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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2019)
B1 THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2019 CONTACT US ewilson@dailyastorian.com (971) 704-1718 COMMUNITY FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON SALTY NOTES AN ABOMINABLE PLACE rom The Daily Astorian, Wednesday, Aug. 15, 1883: “Ainsworth is reported to be the liveliest town in Washington Territory just now, being fi lled up with bridge builders who will be there till New Year’s. … All the iron is now in place. After the bridge is completed Ainsworth will be a small (depot) station.” If the name Ainsworth doesn’t sound at all familiar, there’s a good reason for that: Despite once being deemed as lively, even by Astoria standards, now it’s a ghost town. The town was named after the president of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, John C. Ainsworth. Located just north of the confl uence of the Snake and Columbia rivers, it was built in 1879 by the Northern Pacifi c Rail- road to complete a link from the Montana rail line to the Pacifi c Coast. Consequently, by the early 1880s, the population in Ainsworth boomed at 8,000, many of whom were labor- ers. A string of railroad cars was needed to use as bunk- houses to accommodate them. The town was made livelier when the NPR built two sawmills — even though the area itself was a desert, and totally treeless — to produce the railroad ties that would be needed to complete the mission. Ainsworth is pictured, courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society. Soon there were the saloons, gunfi ghts, opium dens and bordellos — common corollaries of a growing frontier town in the middle of nowhere in the Wild West — which more genteel folks found quite offensive. Consequently, in 1885, Capt. William Polk Gray (who ran a successful steamboat business towing log booms and transporting lumber to Ainsworth), along with his part- ners, led several townsfolk in a move to leave Ainsworth and establish a new town nearby, which became Pasco. Many more citizens soon jumped onto the exodus bandwagon, some even dismantling entire buildings in Ainsworth and moving them to Pasco. The school and railroad operations soon followed and, as a fi nal blow, Ainsworth’s coveted title of county seat was given to Pasco. Abandoned, Ainsworth gradually disintegrated into the dust; all that’s left of it are some foundations. The town’s demise was probably just as well, however, considering the opinion of Thomas Symons, a U.S. Army engineer: “Ainsworth is one of the most uncomfortable, abomina- ble places in America to live in.” Rest in pieces. (bit.ly/ ains101, bit.ly/ains102, bit.ly/ains103) STARING AT GULLS F he fi shing vessel Chellissa has added some boozy cargo on behalf of Pilot House Distilling,” Astorian reporter Edward Stratton revealed. “The dis- tillery, recently acquired by Buoy Beer Co., strapped two barrels with about 30 cases worth of its A-O Whisky aboard the fi shing vessel to test a method of aging spir- its at sea.” Christina Cary’s photo of the barrel loading is shown. “Larry Cary, the co-founder of Pilot House and a co-owner with Buoy Beer, said the movement of the whiskey inside the barrel will speed up the aging pro- cess, likely resulting in a dark single-malt whiskey. How it turns out will determine what kind of liquor Pilot House sends out in its next test batch on a boat to Alaska.” “We wanted to see what kind of fl avors this would impart,” Larry told Edward. “I’m assuming we’ll get some salty notes because of the sea air and the water.” “The Chellissa will carry the whiskey for the next few months,” Edward noted, “before it is brought back and bottled by December for sale in the distillery’s tasting room on Duane Street.” “We’ll proof them and bottle them and see what’s left,” Larry added, “unless the sailors out there got thirsty.” ‘T JUMP IN, THE WATER’S FINE he Fukushima Prefectural Government did some tests on the radiation levels at the prefecture’s Kitaizumi Beach in May, and in July reopened it to the public for the fi rst time since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, according to JapanTimes.co (bit.ly/unhot- beach). The photo is courtesy of KYODO via The Japan Times. The cataclysmic events caused core meltdowns and radiation leaks at the Fukushima nuclear reactor, and con- sternation worldwide. However, offi cials say the radia- tion levels at the beach are now the same as before 2011. Hey, it only took eight years. “Seeing the sea makes me feel calm, and the sounds of waves help me forget negative things,” noted one unperturbed visitor, who lost a relative in 2011. “I hope the number of visitors will recover to the pre-disaster level.” T FINDING THE CAIRNSMORE rom the Wednesday, Aug. 15, 1888, edition of The Daily Morning Astorian: “Geo. Fuller, chief engi- neer of the R.R. Thompson, W. E. Warren, chief engineer of a fast sail boat, and Ed. Wright, chief engineer of the Pioneer, went down to the wreck of the Cairnsmore yes- terday by the overland route, and caught 1,783 crabs and 214 clams …” In 1883, Capt. B. Gibbs was sailing the three-masted British bark Cairnsmore from London to Portland, loaded with 7,500 barrels of cement. On Sept. 26, disoriented in a thick fog, he ran hard aground on a Clatsop beach. Heavy surf prevented the crew from leaving the ship, so there they sat for 15 hours. When they were fi nally able to board the ship’s boats, they were picked up and taken to Astoria by a passing steamer. There were no fatalities, but the Cairnsmore was hopelessly mired in the sand. She is shown, courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society. So where is she now? Land that exists now wasn’t there before the South Jetty was built. The jetty caused the sand to build up, and the shoreline began extending farther and farther into the ocean. Consequently, where the ship ran aground is now inland. Don Marshall’s book “Oregon Shipwrecks” says she “lies just a few hundred yards due west of the south end of Coffenbury Lake at Fort Stevens Park.” The ship was still visible even in 1914, and local children used to play in the rigging. In 2003, the late Richard Fencsak wrote about how he and his companions “trudged through a swampy morass and scrambled gingerly over logs buried in waist-high cut grass” to get to what little is left of the wreck, which is mostly buried, like the Peter Iredale. The only clue he gave of the location is to fi nd “the distinctive tree that marked our entry through a grove of shore pines.” Other than that, he said, “you’re on your own.” If you decide take a shot at fi nding it, be sure to take a metal detector. (bit.ly/LewDry, bit.ly/RFcairnsmore, bit. ly/cairnwhere) F BLUES ON THE MOVE lue whales, the largest animal on earth at 110 feet long, have been sighted off the Oregon and Washington coasts recently, NWNewsNet- work.org reports (bit.ly/bluesORWA). John Calambokidis and Kiirsten Flynn, Cascadia Research Collective biologists, were surveying humpbacks and gray whales about 17 miles off Westport, Washington, in late July, when some distinctively tall spouts were spotted. Upon investigation, the pair found two blue whales known to be from a California group. Calambokidis said this is only the fourth sighting off Washington in 50 years. His photo of one of the whales is shown. Incidentally, the biologists also observed more than a dozen blue whales off the coast of Southern Oregon. It’s too soon to tell if the whales’ northward movement is temporary or not. Time will tell. B here’s a new U.K. gull study, SmithsonianMag.com reports, inspired by the birds’ aggressiveness (bit.ly/ gullstare). In the U.K. it’s illegal to kill gulls, so they are free to pester people while they’re eating, and snatch food that looks appealing. Various tactics have been attempted to keep the gulls at bay, but the birds were unde- terred, and possibly amused. So, researchers from the University of Exeter tried a novel approach to tackle the problem. They visited coastal towns and tempted gulls with a bag of french fries. Once a gull noticed the tasty treat, the sci- entist would stare the bird down to see if it would stay away from the food. Surprisingly, it seemed to work — about two-thirds of the time, anyway. Seventy-four birds noticed the bag of goodies; of those, just 27 (36%) went for it, despite the stares. “It seems that just watching the gulls will reduce the chance of them snatching your food,” the researchers concluded. So, next time a gull zeroes in on your lunch, look him sternly in the eye, and see if it works. It might not hurt to repeat “ ‘The Birds’ is only a movie” to yourself several times, though. T WHAT STINKS? n Aug. 4, Kit Ketcham was taking a stroll on the Astoria Riverwalk in Alderbrook, and was just east of the eastern-most trestle, when she smelled “a hor- rendous odor of rot, or sewage, or something similar. It wasn’t just a sniff of it, it was signifi cant.” She couldn’t see anything suspicious lying about, or in the water, that would cause such a stench, so she was mys- tifi ed. She posted the problem on Facebook, hoping some- one would take a look and fi gure it out. It was starting to sound like a Hitchcock movie. “The mystery of the smell on the Riverwalk is solved!” she posted on Facebook Aug. 6. “Astoria Police Department patrol offi cers joined me this afternoon to check out the smell … here’s a photo (shown) taken by Offi cer Thomas Litwin who, with Offi cer Cory Gerig, came out to investigate this afternoon. It’s a very large sturgeon (6 feet or so), caught in a gap between big rocks and stinking up the neighborhood!” “Thanks to APD’s fi nest: The detectives, Offi cers Gerig and Litwin, who solved the mystery!” Kit added. “And, thanks to the person who called APD for assistance.” O ‘STOP ’N SNACK’ ime for a little Goonies summer nostalgia. Thanks to designer, photographer and Goonie fan extraordinaire Fred China, aka the French Goonie, you can watch an uncut scene, “Stop ‘n Snack” that was deleted from the movie “The Goonies” at tinyurl.com/ gooncut The fi ve-minute scene, featuring all of the Goonie kids, takes place mainly at the store on the corner of 37th Street in Astoria. Mikey (Sean Astin, in the screen shot shown) compares One Eyed Willy’s treasure map to one of Can- non Beach he fi nds on a rack in the store — and realizes he knows where the treasure is. Fred posted the link on his Facebook page, tinyurl.com/ goon1632, a must site to visit for Goonie fans. T
