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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2020
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2020 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2010
T
he Columbia River jetties need vast improvement
— and fast.
A century after the jetties were constructed,
erosion has taken its toll on the front door of the Colum-
bia River, and if they aren’t restored and rebuilt, the
expected timeline before they fail is six to eight years,
according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who pre-
sented the project to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon
Democrat, at the South Jetty on Friday.
Wyden will be taking the request back to Washington,
D.C., in support of the project and in hopes of securing
the funding to do so.
The project is expected to cost more than $160 mil-
lion for the fi rst phase of restoration, and Wyden said he
would be making the case, dollar-for-dollar, to those on
the East Coast who don’t necessarily know what jetties
are and why they are so important.
Not long after it helped swing the bar pilot
boat Peacock into position in front of the
Columbia River Maritime Museum, a 170,000-
pound crane crashed on U.S. Highway 30 near
John Day Friday evening.
Offi cials at t he Oregon Department of Trans-
portation say it looks like a broken booster axle
is to blame for the accident.
Jennifer used to tell herself a story: “He only threat-
ened to kill me once, but he didn’t really mean it.”
Threats, terror, children, emotional and fi nancial secu-
rity keep women and men in domestic violence situations.
“Every story is sad and different,” said Pat Bur-
ness, director of the Clatsop County Women’s Resource
Center.
They all begin with love.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and
Jennifer, a survivor of domestic violence, was one of a
number of people who spoke after a candlelight march on
Wednesday night in Astoria.
The Women’s Resource Center, which has worked
with women and victims of abuse for years, led over 100
people in a candle lit march. Carrying signs and candles,
they walked from the Columbia River Maritime Museum
to a conference room at Columbia Memorial Hospital
several blocks away.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, second from right, takes a tour of the South Jetty from the observation platform with Laura Hicks,
right, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during a visit to the North Coast in 2010.
Peeling paint and cracked plaster inside the lobby of the
historic John Jacob Astor Hotel were not a deterrent to
the owners of Vintage Hardware in 2010.
One of the large cranes used to move the pilot boat
Peacock to its resting place at the Columbia River
Maritime Museum went off the road and overturned on
U.S. Highway 30 near Astoria in 2010.
After years of abandonment, the John Jacob
Astor Hotel lobby is back in business.
Plaster is missing from the pillars and there
are holes in the ceiling but Becky Johnson and
Paul Tuter, co-owners of Vintage Hardware,
have never felt more at home.
They’ve spent a good portion of their lives
salvaging items worn down by time, weather
and use. Turning the Astor lobby and its adja-
cent commercial space into their new fl agship
store made sense.
Much like the furniture and houseware Vin-
tage Hardware sells, the richness and beauty of
the hotel is still obvious in the lobby, but so is
the decay.
“We’ve been itching to get in here,” Tuter
said.
50 years ago — 1970
A tremendous time and gracious hosts.
That summarized comments today from Mayor and
Mrs. Harry Steinbock and 21 other Astoria-area residents
who returned over the weekend from Walldorf, Ger-
many, where they helped Astoria’s sister city celebrate
its 1,200th anniversary. Walldorf is the birthplace of John
Jacob Astor, for whom Astoria is named.
The Port of Astoria will cease dredging pier
slips this Friday and will do no more dumping of
dredge material in Youngs Bay in the immediate
future, C.E. “Ted” Hodges, port manager, told
some half dozen Astoria residents at the P ort
C ommission’s meeting on Tuesday night. The
residents had attended to protest the dumping.
The residents, all of whom have views of
Youngs Bay from their homes, protested the
unsightliness of the dredge material and indi-
cated their intent to mount a petition drive in an
attempt to have the dumping site changed.
“It looks like a bunch of garbage at low tide,”
one man said. “It doesn’t improve our property
any.”
The Port of Astoria Commission Tuesday night voted
to meet with the c ity to see if the port docks and moor-
ing basins can be included in the city’s sewage disposal
system.
The action was taken after Commissioner Al Rissman
said he anticipates government regulations in the near
future would require port districts to provide for disposal
of waste from ships visiting their docks and boats in their
mooring basins.
The Astoria City Council seemed to agree
Thursday to a second land trade in the block
bordered by Duane, Exchange, Ninth and 10th
streets, where the U.S. National Bank plans a
new building and where the city has parking.
Council members met at noon with Joseph
Labadie, of the bank’s Portland offi ce, and
expressed approval of the city paying $3,000
over two years, in exchange for which the bank
would pave the southwestern corner of the block
for city parking. The c ouncil can’t take action
outside of an offi cial meeting, so the matter may
be on Monday night’s agenda.
A small audience heard a rundown Thursday night on
what federal programs are available for construction of
low-rent housing projects.
Vern Weiss, executive director of the Oregon Housing
Development Corporation , spoke at Clatsop College on
Jessica Buoy, 9, leads a group of about 150 on a candlelight march from the Columbia River Maritime Museum to
Columbia Memorial Hospital in 2010. The march celebrated the lives of survivors of domestic violence.
ing is scarce. The hotels use paper bed sheets,
but they aren’t so very bad. The fact is that you
don’t have any of the luxury over here that we
have in the states. There is no heat in the hotel.
The hotel is just as modern as any in the states,
only it isn’t as large. I doubt if I have ever seen
more modern furniture in any hotel, even in the
best in New York C ity. Bu t it is so cold in my
room that I can hardly move my pen with any
accuracy. I have more or less gotten used to fi sh
and that is all there is. Milk is scarce. Candy just
cannot be had.”
Mayor Harry Steinbock and his wife display gifts from Walldorf,
Germany, in 1970.
the many programs available and about the newly orga-
nized corporation . Near the end of the 1 1/2-hour meet-
ing the need for a housing survey in Clatsop County was
discussed.
75 years ago — 1945
Radio station KAST has begun operations in its new
downtown studio quarters at 381 Commercial St. , in the
same building as the rationing board offi ce.
The station’s studio was moved from its previous
location at Commercial and Ninth s treets. The station
now has three studio location: downtown Astoria, Sea-
side and the Youngs Bay station.
The new quarters includes a reception room in front, a
studio and offi ce space in the back. KAST has moved the
station’s Associated Press teletype to the front window
of the new quarter, and will continue to receive 24 hour
news reports there.
War time existence in Helsinki, the capital
of Finland , is described in a letter from Eric
Frombom Jr., former night clerk at the Elliott
H otel, to Mr. and Mrs. Emill Nyman, of Asto-
ria. The former Astorian is an interpreter in the
American Legation at Helsinki, which recently
returned to the country following restoration of
full diplomatic relations.
“The Finns don’t seem to be starving,” he
writes, “but the food is very poor and cloth-
The light cruiser Amsterdam will discharge 200
patients to the Astoria n aval h ospital sometime Sunday
afternoon (the estimated time of arrival is 1 o’clock), the
13th Naval District said today.
After docking at the n aval s tation, the fast cruiser
of Halsey’s t hird fl eet will proceed to Portland and fur-
ther discharge nearly 1,000 returning Pacifi c veterans
and remain along the seawall between the Morrison and
Burnside bridges to take part in that city’s celebration of
Navy Day.
Known throughout Fast Carrier Task Force 38 as
the “Protector,” the Amsterdam came out of the war
untouched, because her new type radar fi re-control
equipment turned the kamikaze attacks back in the clos-
ing days of the war.
The destroyer U.S.S. Franks, on the high seas
bound to Astoria for Navy Day observance, has
an Astoria seaman aboard who doesn’t know he
is headed for his hometown.
The most surprised and happy man aboard
the destroyer when she berths at Astoria will be
George Huhtala, seaman fi rst class, whose wife
and 3 -year-old daughter, Jane, reside at 665
Florence St . In his last letter to his family, the
Astorian mentioned rumors to the effect that his
ship might head for the states.
Huhtala has been in the U.S. N avy for more
than a year . Off the Philippines, the 2,200-ton
destroyer survived a typhoon, which damaged
and even sank other war vessels. In her most
dramatic exploit, the powerful destroyer of late
design, disembarked 100 rangers on Okinawa
some 10 days before the invasion. This landing
party directed fi re from the destroyer on targets
it encountered in fulfi lling its reconnaissance
mission.