THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2009
T
he 115th annual Astoria Regatta is
over. The king is dead, long live the
king. Time to begin planning for
next year.
The fi ve-day festival fi nished up on
Sunday with a bluegrass concert by
Small Town at the Clatsop Community
College Performing Arts Center.
“This is a wonderful community,”
said U.S. Rep. David Wu, who was pres-
ent at the Memorial Ceremony at Mar-
itime Park. “I’m very glad I’ve had the
opportunity to join in on different parts
of the Regatta weekend.”
Wu — along with other offi cials,
including Capt. Douglas E. Kaup,
commanding offi cer of Coast Guard
Group/Air Station Astoria — placed
fl owers at the edge of the Columbia
River to honor the men and women
in the Navy and Coast Guard and the
Columbia River Bar Pilots.
“This is the one thing worth being
admiral for,” said 2009 Regatta Admiral Paul Mitchell
after the ceremony.
The strains of the Portland ensemble Festi-
val Brass fi lled the air Saturday as dozens gath-
ered atop Coxcomb Hill for the grand re-open-
ing of the Astoria Column.
The 164-step staircase to the top of the
famous landmark was closed for safety reasons
in December 2007 when cracks were discov-
ered. Now, a year and a half later, a new stair-
case is in place, and that was cause for public
celebration, reminiscences and thanks.
A teenager goes out into the ocean at Seaside and
suddenly is trapped in a rip current. His father dives in
after him, but he, too, is caught. He can’t save his son,
and he can’t get back to shore on his own.
A lifeguard, who is in the area looking for a lost child
near the 12th Avenue access, sees the trouble in the
ocean and rescues the father and son.
The scenario, which occurred earlier this month,
might have turned out differently if the city of Seaside
hadn’t found money for the lifeguard program.
Stymied by decreasing city funds because of reduced
lodging taxes, less revenue from building permits and
lower collections of property taxes, the city budget com-
mittee this year gave up trying to fi nd money to fi nance
the lifeguard program.
At the last minute, however, City Manager Mark Win-
stanley proposed pulling $27,000 from the Seaside Civic
and Convention Center operations and capital improve-
ments budget and from the Prom improvement fund.
The money will fi nance the program this year, and
if the city fi nalizes a deal on the old library building,
enough money will be available for another fi ve years,.
2009 — An audience was treated to the Astoria Regatta
fi reworks and music of Bruce Smith and Boda Boyuz
from the Hotel Elliott’s rooftop terrace.
Cavalry, APO San Francisco.
The unit has been in heavy battle near the
Cambodian border.
Interior Secretary Hickel’s proposal that construc-
tion of any dam on the middle Snake River be held up is
good, if surprising, news to the fi shing industry and oth-
ers interested in natural resource conservation.
75 years ago — 1944
Floyd Swensen, son of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Swensen
of Seaside, tells an interesting story of conditions on
Guam in a letter received from him this week.
Young Swenson, overseas since February with his
Marine Corps unit, landed on Guam in the early stages
of the invasion and saw real service in the “mopping up
of the Japs” in their caves and hideouts.
In his letter, the Seaside boy tells of the surprise of
himself and other Marines when they encountered par-
ties of natives on the island singing “America” and
their own special war song, “Uncle Sam Come Back to
Guam.”
1969 — Ken Petersen (left), skipper of the charter boat
Irish at Warrenton, shows a 44-pound Chinook landed
from his boat.
50 years ago — 1969
The city of Astoria offi cially welcomed its Regatta
fl eet in ceremonies at the East Astoria Mooring Basin
and the port docks.
The Canadian Navy training vessels Porte de la
Reine, fl agship of the task unit; Porte Quebec, Hiram-
ichi, Chowichan and Oriole are tied up at the east basin
and the USS Brush, Portland Naval Reserve training
vessel, at the port docks.
The man at the wheel of the station wagon
with the Nebraska license plates pulled up to
the curb.
“Excuse me, Ma’am. Could you tell us what
this here ‘Regatta’ your town is advertising is
all about?”
“You see, we’re strangers in town, camping
out at the beautiful Fort Stevens State Park and
we’ve never seen a Regatta,” his pleasant-faced
wife explained.
“A Regatta is really a water festival,” we
explained, “with boat races and that sort. Asto-
ria’s Regattas started way back in the 1870s
and have been continuous, with the exception
of World War I and World War II year, so this
is our 49th Regatta, to be exact. However, now
we include many land events in our Regattas,
such as the crowning of our Regatta Queen
Thursday night ...”
Clatsop County Historical Advisory Committee has
approved a site for a marker commemorating the bom-
bardment of the Fort Stevens area by a Japanese subma-
1969 — Omar Stephens Jr., Victor Ken, Jack Temple and
Lief Ericksen put up Regatta banners in Astoria.
rine in 1942.
The committee visited the area and selected a spot
beside DeLaura Beach Road, 300 feet west of the junc-
tion with Ridge Road.
The county commissioners have already authorized
funds and the committee will go ahead with erection of a
marker as designed by Dick Thompson of Astoria Gran-
ite Works.
Spec. 4 Harry G. Richcreek, of Astoria, has
written home that he and other members of
his unit in Vietnam would love to get some fi sh
hooks so they can enliven their diets.
His mother, Jane Richcreek, Astoria, asks
anyone interested and having old fi sh hooks
around to send them to: Co. A, 2nd Bn., 7th Air
1969 — Dick Thompson’s sketch
of the proposed marker near the
shell hole where a round from
Japanese submarine I-17 landed
June 21, 1942, along the DeLaura
Beach Road.
More than 300 of Clatsop County’s 650 4-H
club members jammed the county 4-H club
fair building with exhibits opening their annual
three-day fair today in competition for tro-
phies, honors and cash.
Mr. and Mrs. James Hogg, 581 Irving Avenue,
recently received reassuring word from their son, For-
rest Glenn Hogg, a Navy radio electrician and a prisoner
of the Japs since the fall of Bataan. In a letter to his wife,
dated July 4, 1943, at Osake camp, Japan, and received
in this country only a few days ago, the former Astoria
boy says:
“I am permitted to write a few words to let you know
how I am getting along. As yet, I haven’t received any
letters or packages from you but I am expecting a letter
any time, and hoping for a package. I am still alive and
kicking and in fair health. I am working every day now
except Sundays. As you can see by the address I have
been moved to a new camp and do a different type of
work.
“I hope you keep in touch with my mother as I am not
permitted to write enough letters to write to you both.
When you write you will have to give me word from
them as well as yourself.
“I am hoping and praying for an end to the war any
day. Of course we don’t know when it will end but we
pray for a quick end of hostilities.”
There were several large live-bait boat alba-
core deliveries here over the weekend, most of
the larger deliveries going to the Van Camp
cannery, which has stepped up operations in
recent weeks and is joining other canneries
now in an appeal for cannery labor.
The Van Camp company received the Wash-
ington with about 24,000 pounds, the Seat-
tle boat Soupfi n with more than 45,000 and
the Spitfi re with 30,000 pounds. The Thelma
H., with more than 15,000 pounds, went to
the Columbia River Packers association. Tuna
receipts over the weekend were generally
heavy.
1944 movie poster.
1969 — Minesweepers Cowichan and Hiramichi arrive for Regatta.