THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2010
H
is family jokes that Carl Abraham spends
more time at the trolley barn than anywhere
else. But it’s not much of an exaggeration.
And keeping the Astoria Riverfront Trolley up and
running is just one of the retired optician’s many vol-
unteer efforts.
On Saturday night, Abraham’s lifetime of volunteer
service was recognized with a 2009 George Award
from the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Com-
merce at the organization’s 137th annual awards ban-
quet. The other recipient of the George Award was
Eric Paulson, owner of Lektro, the Warrenton-based
company that manufactures electronic aircraft tugs
and ships them all over the country and the world.
A large bronze fountain that once graced
Shively Park has been rescued from obscu-
rity to become a star of Astoria’s Bicentennial
celebration. The city will be 200 years old on
April 12, 2011.
At Monday’s meeting, the Astoria City
Council gave its stamp of approval to the
b icentennial c ommittee’s plans to refurbish
the fountain as a legacy project. The council
also endorsed a long list of events presented
by c ommittee leaders McAndrew Burns of the
Clatsop County Historical Society and Pau-
lette McCoy, starting with planting 200 trees
around the city on Earth Day this year.
Highlights of the 2011 calendar include an
o pening e vent and d owntown b irthday c ele-
bration on May 21, 2011; a Bicentennial Ball
on Aug. 13, 2011, during the Astoria Regatta
with John Jacob Astor III as the honored
guest; and Astoria Super Homecoming Sept.
14 to 18, 2011.
California brown pelicans are begging for food on
the Oregon Coast rather than migrating south to breed-
ing grounds.
The Wildlife Center of the North Coast continues to
receive three brown pelicans a day suffering from star-
vation or other ailments.
Director Sharnelle Fee said the center is doing nec-
ropsies on all dead pelicans that are brought in. “All of
the birds are highly emaciated and some have inappro-
priate food in their stomach – i.e. c hicken bones (with
no meat), bread,” she said.
She warned residents not to feed the birds.
Pelicans have very specifi c diets and cannot pro-
cess or receive nutrients from food items outside of
their diet, she said. Large bones may puncture deli-
cate internal organs and lead to accelerated death of
the bird.
A man takes advantage of a break in the rain to walk his dog on the Gearhart beach in 2010. Seaside looms in the
background in the unusual view of the North Coast.
California brown pelicans recover at the Wildlife Center of
the North Coast.
Sharnelle Fee, left, the director of the Wildlife Center of the
North Coast, and Josh Saranpaa, an intern from Astoria
High School, work on a California brown pelican in 2010.
Around 20 people attended a public meet-
ing of the new group Clatsop Residents
against Walmart Wednesday.
The group sent out 350 letters to local busi-
nesses soliciting donations in November, and
has made enough to distribute 2,244 copies of
the documentary “Walmart: The High Cost
of Low Price ” to households in the Warrenton
and Hammond area Feb. 6 and 7.
50 years ago — 1970
Paths of light on the river at night are a legacy from ships at anchor off the Astoria waterfront in 1970, where the vessels
wait out heavy seas at the Columbia River Bar or available berthage at Astoria or upriver ports.
mittee hearing Friday.
Declaring that “this law does not belong
on the statute books,” Gunther Krause, attor-
ney for the Portland Waterfront Employers
A ssociation, said that the bill proposed to cre-
ate a “penal statute” to control matter which
would be much better handled by labor-em-
ployer negotiation, and that the bill, if made
into law, would involve employers in endless
lawsuits.
Members of the West Coast Trollers Association
have passed resolutions backing strict regulations on
ocean oil spillage and asking representation of the
fi shing industry on nuclear site committees in Oregon
and Washington state.
The ocean fi shermen, who met in Astoria Saturday,
resolved that tough laws on oil spillage were neces-
sary to protect the ecology of the Northwest.
The group wants the fi shing industry to have a say
in picking sites of nuclear power plants in the two
states and insure that cooling systems at such plants
are effi cient and that some funds are available to do
fi sh hatchery work or carry on other activities affected
by nuclear facilities.
HEADQUARTERS 41st DIVISION, Far Pacifi c
— Tech. Sgt. James L. Hope Jr. of Astoria has been
awarded the bronze star medal for personal valor and
a deep-seated devotion to duty on the fi eld of battle.
Clatsop County went over the normal Jan-
uary rainfall total at midnight, according to
the airport weather station. Normal for Janu-
ary is 11.71 inches. Up to 10 a.m. today a total
of 13.33 inches had been measured.
The City of Astoria’s offi cial 1970 population will
be infl uenced by how many ships with American crew-
men are in port.
George Blessing, a Department of Commerce offi -
cial, told Astoria Kiwanians Tuesday that any Ameri-
cans on board ships in Astoria at the time of the cen-
sus-taking will be included in the city’s population.
He said the same goes for persons from other cities
or states who are attending Clatsop College at the time
of the national nose count. By the same token, Asto-
rians attending college elsewhere will be counted as
residents of those other cities.
A 36-foot Coast Guard motor life boat,
recently retired from service at Cape Disap-
pointment, was presented Wednesday to Rolf
Klep, director of the Columbia River Mari-
time Museum.
Klep said the craft, complete with engine
and gear, will remain in storage either in the
boathouse or elsewhere until a planned mari-
time museum structure at the 17th St. water-
front park in Astoria is erected.
The structure will house such large exhibits
as the wooden self-righting self-baling motor
lifeboat. Klep suggested the craft might be
sunk in a pit to the waterline for display.
Port of Astoria along with other Columbia River
ports will benefi t from an Interstate Commerce Com-
mission decision killing the proposed Roselia grain
The Astoria Marine Construction com-
pany’s YP-623, a refrigerated tuna clipper-
type naval vessel built for inter-island freight
traffi c in the Pacifi c, was launched from the
company’s Lewis and Clark R iver yards at
noon today, after christening by Mrs. Julia
Strand, wife of the vessel’s commanding
offi cer.
The YP-623 is the largest ship yet built
at the marine construction company , being
shorter than the minesweepers, but also being
of considerably greater tonnage.
Joseph M. Dyer, president of the company,
complimented his working force on produc-
tion increases during the last month, which he
described as outstanding.
Shella Ekman peers through a rain-soaked window and
seems to be thinking, ‘Won’t it ever stop?’ in 1970.
freight rate that would have diverted massive ton-
nage of grain from e astern Washington to Seattle
and Tacoma, according to C.E. Hodges, Astoria port
manager.
75 years ago — 1945
Astoria will join other cities of the nation in the
week Feb. 5 to Feb. 10 on a campaign to collect dis-
carded clothing for shipment to the Russian peo-
ple, it was announced today by Neil Morfi tt, salvage
chairman.
A Senate bill providing for equal pay for
men and women working at the same job was
strongly opposed by employers’ representa-
tives at the Senate labor and industries com-
The game committee of the house today pro-
posed the creation of a small game reserve in Clatsop
County. Under the provisions of the bill, the reserve
would include a state park between Cannon Beach and
Seaside.
The measure is chiefl y for the protection of elk,
according to the chairman of the game committee.
Absence of sizable epidemics in Clatsop
County during 1944 is indicated in the annual
report of Dr. Dorothea H. Scoville, county
health offi cer, which shows that the number
of communicable diseases reported in this
county during 1944 was 545 as compared with
744 in 1942.
Dr. Scoville said that less measles, mumps
and chicken pox accounted for the differ-
ence. Records show no heavy run of infl uenza,
although the doctor pointed out that physi-
cians often fail to report such cases.