B1
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2021
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2021 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2011
T
he Astoria City Council has decided to hand over
some drunk-driving cases to Clatsop County
District Attorney Josh Marquis.
But not all of them and not right away. City Councilor
Russ Warr said he sees this as an attempt to make peace
with the d istrict a ttorney, who has been campaigning for
the change in handling of cases involving driving under
the infl uence of intoxicants .
The City Council has agreed to submit a letter to City
Manager Paul Benoit in favor of addressing the criti-
cisms the M unicipal C ourt has faced for prosecution of
cases involving DUIIs.
“I’m very supportive of this step,” said City Coun-
cilor Karen Mellin, who campaigned for closer scrutiny
of DUIIs when she was elected last fall. “Maybe it will
clarify, for us as well as the public, what does happen
with DUIIs.”
CHINOOK, Wash. — Where a 24-inch cul-
vert once let in a trickle of water and the occa-
sional confused, claustrophobic fi sh, a huge
12-foot-by-12-foot culvert is now installed
under U.S. Highway 101.
Water is again fl owing through what was
historically a wetland area.
Funded by an array of sources and combin-
ing the organization and permitting powers
of a variety of agencies, the project is nearing
completion.
The Fort Columbia Tidal Reconstruction
Project, headed by the Astoria-based Columbia
River Estuary Study Taskforce, seeks to recon-
nect the Columbia River estuary with a distrib-
utary of the Chinook River that fl ows through
a wetland east of Highway 101.
About an inch of snow covered Cannon Beach and sprinkled Haystack Rock in February 2011.
tor of Clatsop Intermediate Education District’s Infor-
mational Media Center.
A late winter snowfall in the lower Colum-
bia area slowed the daily pace of residents but
did not disrupt the business community or util-
ity services.
75 years ago — 1946
SEASIDE — Sprinklers in a storage area adjacent
to the Carousel Mall in downtown Seaside prevented a
fi re from causing major damage to the structure Tues-
day night.
Seaside Fire Marshal Chris Dugan said fi refi ght-
ers responded to a report called in at 5:39 p.m. Tuesday
about water fl owing at the Carousel Mall, which con-
tains several individual stores and restaurants within one
structure.
The most exciting goal setting session she’s
ever been to. That’s how Arline LaMear, pres-
ident of the Astoria City Council, described
last week’s council gathering. Perhaps it was
so exciting because so many projects are on the
table.
The City Council sat down at the
Columbia River Maritime Museum Friday
to discuss the library, a recreation center
and the Riverfront Vision P lan, among other
things.
“We want to call it a recreation center
because the term ‘community center’ causes
some confusion,” LaMear said. “It means dif-
ferent things to different people.”
The City Council’s goals also include sup-
porting the b icentennial, completing the Gar-
den of Surging Waves, increasing opportunities
to participate in outdoor and indoor recreation,
redeveloping the former Safeway square, eval-
uating energy cost-saving measures and main-
taining advocacy for the Astoria bypass and for
fi sheries issues.
50 years ago — 1971
SEASIDE — U.S. Rep. Wendell Wyatt says noth-
ing, including ecological factors, should be allowed to
stop construction of the proposed American Metal Cli-
max aluminum plant in Warrenton or the Trojan nuclear
plant in Rainier.
Addressing the annual convention of the Ore-
gon Building and Construction Trades Council Satur-
day, Wyatt, an Oregon Republican who represents the
North Coast, emphasized the need for more power and
employment for Oregon, warning that power shortages
pose serious threats for a country which is not supplying
additional power to keep up with industrial and popula-
tion growth.
Sections of a 12-foot-wide culvert are installed beneath
U.S. Highway 101 near Chinook, Washington, in 2011.
Three Clatsop County Future Farmers of
America members are to receive Northwest
District Profi ciency Awards.
The awards are for individual excellence in
the areas of forestry management, livestock
farming, agricultural mechanics and home
improvement. The award winners take voca-
tional- agricultural instruction at the Area Voca-
tional Center, operated by the Clatsop Interme-
diate Education District.
The w inners are Alan Robitsch, f orestry
m anagement; Dave Riekkola, l ivestock f arm-
ing and a gricultural m echanics; and Mike
Welch, h ome i mprovement .
Between now and offi cial observance of America’s
bicentennial year, 1976, a novel fourth grade play based
on the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s trail end in Sea-
side may be put to words and music by Walt Disney
Productions.
If so, credit will be given locally to Gearhart elemen-
tary teacher Frances Shoenborn, her class, the Clatsop
Intermediate Education District and several avid sup-
porters of the Lewis and Clark Festival Association.
The play will also likely receive offi cial backing by
the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners and possi-
bly the Oregon State Board of Education.
Proponents of this program, who appeared before
the c ounty c ommission, were Dr. Ed Harvey, Virginia
Haseltine, Deskin Bergey and Charles Kraus, the direc-
A “History of Fort Canby, Washington Territory,”
compiled by Capt. Evan Miles, 21st Infantry, who com-
manded the post in 1893, was among historical records
brought to light in the archives of the Harbor Defenses
of the Columbia River at Fort Stevens recently.
Carefully written in longhand in an old account book
form, the history reveals considerable interesting data
about the early days of the U.S. A rmy post on the rocky
promontory of Cape Disappointment.
It records the naming of Fort Canby in 1874 after the
post had been called Fort Cape Disappointment since
gun platforms were built there for the fi rst time in 1863.
H. Clay Weed, assistant adjutant general of the
Department of the Columbia, proposed the name Fort
Canby in honor of Brevet Maj. Gen. Edward R. S.
Canby, killed by the Modoc Native Americans in their
uprising in 1871 in the lava beds of N orthern California.
In his proposal, Wood went to great lengths to point
out that Cape Disappointment was named by a Brit-
ish man, Capt. George Vancouver, and that Capt. Rob-
ert Gray had named the cape “Cape Hancock” in 1792,
before Vancouver came.
He urged that the offi cial name of the post be “Fort
Canby, Cape Hancock, Washington Territory. ” The pro-
posal was endorsed by Brig. Gen. O.O. Howard, then
commanding the Department of the Columbia with
headquarters of Vancouver b arracks.
The name of Fort Canby stuck, but the Cape Hancock
part, despite the efforts of Wood and Howard, never did
supplant Vancouver’s unfortunate nomenclature for the
promontory.
Clatsop County Sheriff Paul Kearney,
turned handwriting expert, demonstrated to a
15-year-old juvenile Tuesday that crime does
not pay, particularly in the case of a bad check
author who has diffi culty in spelling.
Confronted with handwriting comparisons,
which proved beyond a reasonable doubt that
the youth had written a $20 check using his
father’s signature, the Astoria youth admitted
the charge. But he expressed anxiety to remain
lodged in the juvenile compartment of the Clat-
sop C ounty J ail until his father had time to
“cool off.”
After cross examination, the young Astorian
remained adamant. Kearney c ontemplated
calling in a handwriting analyst to compare the
boy’s handwriting with that on the bad check
for the boy to write out. When the youth asked
Kearney how to spell February, the sheriff told
him to spell it. He did, and in the same peculiar
way in which it was spelled on the check.
The misspelling of a proper name in both
instances lent additional evidence.
Best salmon catches of the winter season were made
during the past three days by Columbia River gillnet
fi shermen who have had poor luck thus far this year.
The West Coast’s biggest cranberry farm,
the biggest one-man cranberry farm in the U.S.
and one of the biggest cranberry operations of
any kind in the nation is Cranguyma Farm.
The farm was established in the past two years
near Long Beach, Washington, by Guy C. Mey-
ers, a prominent New York stockbroker.
The farm has about 80 acres of cranberries
already cleared and planted, together with 6
acres of blueberries and an extensive experi-
mental plot.
But when it is eventually completed — about
six years from now — the farm will contain
some 300 acres in cranberries and 100 acres in
blueberries, as well as an extensive experimen-
tal tract.
Geno Leech, of Chinook, Washington, draws a laugh from a FisherPoets Gathering crowd in 2011 inside Fort George
Brewery’s Lovell Taproom.
February’s many hard downpours of rain brought a
total of 16.63 inches for the month to make it the damp-
est month of an extremely wet winter and to bring the
total winter rainfall for the past four months to nearly
60 inches.