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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2021
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2021 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2011
ucien Swerdloﬀ ’s historic preservation and resto-
ration students from Clatsop Community College
have just ﬁ nished their ﬁ rst term of workshops in Asto-
ria’s derelict train depot.
They were chipping through lead paint, removing
asbestos-laden glazing putty and otherwise restoring win-
dows in the former freight storage hall that will transform
into their new woodshop during the next one to two years.
Through the restoration, the train depot will become the
Columbia River Maritime Museum’s Barbey Maritime
Center, an annex of the museum dedicated to boat building
and historical restoration.
L
SEASIDE — The question may be curious for
those who think the beach is used just for taking
a stroll or sunbathing on a hot, summer day.
But for those who plan events on the beach,
the question the Oregon Parks and Recreation
Department is mulling over is crucial, and for
some, expensive.
That question is: What constitutes a nontradi-
tional use for the beach?
It might be a wedding, but probably not.
It’s not a volleyball game among friends. But
if that volleyball game requires 115 nets and
1,600 players, the use of the beach is deﬁ nitely
nontraditional.
“People who just want to go down to the beach
have a right to expect not to be interfered with,”
said Chris Havel, a spokesman for the state parks
department.
If a special event keeps individuals or fami-
lies from enjoying the beach, then that event may
require a special permit, he said.
Astoria has its charm. But it’s no “little boxes,” and that
essence is what city leaders want to preserve in the future
planning of Astoria — a town with character and authen-
ticity; a town that is real.
The Pete Seeger song “Little Boxes ” describes a town
on a hillside where all the houses and the people looking
prim and neat; but they all look the same, they are carbon
copies of towns all across the country.
Astoria City Manager Paul Benoit said, “That’s what
Astoria is not.”
The professional market research ﬁ rm, East-
lan Ratings , has ranked KMUN 91.9 FM the
top rated radio station in its market, with more
weekly listeners in its market than any other
radio broadcaster. The research was compiled in
winter 2011.
50 years ago — 1971
Only 25 to 30 people showed up Thursday night for the
second “rap session” at Astoria High School, designed to
promote communication between students, parents, teach-
ers and s chool b oard members. The ﬁ rst session, a week
earlier, drew around 50.
After Thursday night’s group re assembled before
adjournment, Jim Sharp, director of the Clatsop Men-
tal Health Clinic, asked if anyone could explain the light
turn out.
Among reasons given were that it’s too much to expect
people to leave their homes and regular activities at night,
that The Daily Astorian’s account of the ﬁ rst session might
have indicated that nothing much was accomplished and
that more students might turn out if homework weren’t
assigned the night of the rap sessions.
SEASIDE — Anyone who has ever backed
into that unseen utility pole, or crunched some-
body’s car fender, may get some satisfaction from
a Seaside p olice mishap early this week. It seems
two police cars collided.
The 85th anniversary of the founding of the Astoria
Finnish Brotherhood L odge will be celebrated with a pro-
gram Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at Suomi Hall. Col. Del-
Crab pots line the Astoria Riverwalk at the end of Seventh Street in 2011.
Students in Lucien Swerdloﬀ ’s Clatsop Community
College historic preservation class refurbish windows in
the Astoria train depot in 2011.
bert Bjork, the former military attache to Finland, will be
the principal speaker. Members who have attained their
50-year membership in the lodge during the year will be
honored during the program, which will also include musi-
cal numbers, refreshments and a dance.
The Astoria lodge was organized on Dec. 6, 1886,
with a charter membership of 50 men, some of whom
had migrated to Astoria in the late 1860 s and early 1870 s.
Many of them had come earlier to San Francisco as sea-
men, where a group of Finns had organized a sickness and
funeral beneﬁ t organization four years earlier. Most of the
early Finnish settlers, who were attracted here primarily by
the salmon ﬁ shing industry, came via San Francisco where
the ﬁ rst trans continental railroad, completed in 1896, had
its terminus.
The lodge had its early beginnings as a mutual aid soci-
ety and later broadened its social and civic activities until it
became the largest and most active ethnic group in the city.
75 years ago — 1946
ILWACO, Wash. — Miss Martha Hardy, who taught
in Ilwaco High School some eight to 10 years ago and is
now a member of the University of Washington faculty,
has written a book, just published by Macmillan. The book
is called “Tatoosh” and portrays life as a “lady lookout”
for the three summer months on a lonely spot on a forest
peak in wartime.
She lived alone in a little glass-walled hut to keep ﬁ re
watch over the Columbia National Forest.
Envelopes to be mailed on the ﬁ rst airmail ﬂ ight out
of Astoria were piling up today by the thousands in the
post oﬃ ce as the ﬁ rst preliminary ﬂ ight of West Coast
Airlines took oﬀ here.
Crumbling columns at Clatsop Community College’s
Towler Hall seen in 1971.
The letters have been sent by stamp collectors
from all over the nation.
Airmail service from Astoria will be inaugu-
rated with the ﬁ rst commercial ﬂ ight of West
Coast Airlines, which had been tentatively sched-
uled for Friday but has been postponed.
A thorough and detailed survey of Astoria street light-
ing needs to have been begun by John F. Whitney, street
lighting consultant of the Paciﬁ c Power & Light company
engineering department, and will take from three weeks to
a month to complete, Arthur Dempsie, local manager for
the company, said today.
The survey is being made at the request of the C ity
C ommission, which several weeks ago formally called
upon the power company to make the survey, as a pre-
liminary to an attempted modernization of the city’s street
lighting.
A giant neon-lighted red cross may be erected
atop the Astoria C olumn on Coxcomb H ill
during Christmas week if plans of the c hamber
of c ommerce merchants bureau are carried out,
Maurice Wilson, merchants bureau chairman,
informed the chamber directors at their weekly
meeting Friday.
The bureau also proposes to obtain a dozen
recordings of Christmas carols which will be
played during Christmas week over the Baptist
church public address system for the beneﬁ t of
downtown shoppers, Wilson said.
Christmas decorations for the downtown
streets are ready to be erected and will be in place
by Nov. 25, Wilson said .
Rolf Klep, director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum, inspects a model of the Columbia Rediviva with Frans
Wuopio in 1971. Wuopio carved the model out of African boxwood over a two-year period.
For the ﬁ rst time in the memory of City Hall’s “old-
est inhabitants,” the C ity C ommission on Monday night
had to call oﬀ its scheduled session because of lack of a
quorum.
The commission has from time-to-time over the
years had to postpone meetings because it was known in
advance that a quorum would be lacking on meeting night,
but Monday night the commissioners — two of them —
gathered in expectation of a meeting.