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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2021
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2021 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2011
A
uthenticity was in the air at Astoria High School.
While many local residents were enjoying
post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches Friday
night, a group dedicated to Scandinavian heritage enjoyed
the Sankta Lucia Festival of L ights.
Put on by the organizers of the annual Astoria Scandi-
navian Midsummer Festival, the event featured Scandi-
navian dancing, Christmas carols and the presentation of
the Lucia Bride with her court of attendants and star boys.
“The Scandinavian countries are dark countries in
winter and we all need a bit of light and hope,” said Janet
Bowler, entertainment chairwoman for the festival.
Behind an unassuming door leading from the
McTavish Room on the Liberty Theatre’s sec-
ond ﬂ oor, one last challenge awaits the comple-
tion of the building’s restoration.
Out of sight above the Liberty’s theatrical
stage is an expansive area that Rosemary Bak-
er-Monaghan, the theater’s executive director,
and a nonproﬁ t developer team plan to renovate.
The ﬁ nal piece of what’s been a 13-year proj-
ect won’t come cheaply, however.
Baker-Monaghan estimates the ﬁ rst part of
the theater’s third and ﬁ nal phase will cost about
$772,000. Some of that money has already been
earmarked, including a $386,000 grant from
the Astor East Urban Renewal District and a
$75,000 matching grant from the Ford Family
Foundation.
A city code for derelict buildings is bringing down the
house — or houses, to be exact, in the semi-abandoned
Blue Ridge neighborhood in Astoria.
“The city in their inﬁ nite wisdom ﬁ nally passed the
code,” said Paul Mossberg, the lone homeowning occu-
pant of the neighborhood. “I’ve been beating the drum for
them to do something because I’ve been telling them an
ordinance not enforced is worse than no ordinance at all.”
The City Council adopted the derelict building code in
the spring, hoping to address the ramshackled, run-down
and abandoned houses that have caused issues in the city
for years.
A home and two business properties owned by the Fla-
vel family are among those buildings the city was work-
ing to address.
Sankta Lucia Bride Alli Cahill, senior attendants Courtney Carlson and Cari Knapp, plus junior attendants and star boys
parade in front of the audience at the 2011 Sankta Lucia Festival of Lights.
The abandoned Flavel home on the corner of 15th Street
and Franklin Avenue in 2011.
50 years ago — 1971
The Astoria skipper of a four-man crew rescued from
Aleutian waters after four days in a raft said the group sur-
vived because “we just hung on.”
Astorian David Densmore said he and his crew suf-
fered only minor frostbite despite being forced to take to
an inﬂ atable raft clothed in shirtsleeves when their 80-foot
crab boat Astron exploded and sank Monday.
Densmore said “for the ﬁ rst two days, I thought we’d
be picked up. But after the second night, we got kind of
doubtful.”
The Astron was four hours out of Dutch Harbor on
Unalaska Island when an explosion blew through the
engine room, s etting the craft on ﬁ re.
“There was so much ﬁ re, we couldn’t tell the source,”
he said. “When we saw we couldn’t put it out, we just
thought about getting oﬀ the boat.”
Only one man had time to ﬁ nd a jacket, and it was
shared among the crewmen as they ﬂ oated without food
or water in what Densmore called “ﬂ at calm.”
They were rescued by the Japanese ﬁ shing boat Chi-
dori Maru No. 51 oﬀ Akutan Island’s north head. The Jap-
anese administered ﬁ rst aid and brought the Americans
back to Dutch Harbor.
It was almost ten months ago that several
homes in the area of 27th Street and Grand
Avenue in Astoria started sliding during heavy
rains. Residents were evacuated from the area
and several homes were damaged.
Since that time, the city has undertaken vari-
ous corrective measures, according to the Engi-
neering Department . Residents of 27th Street
between Harrison Avenue and Marine Drive
believe the city has not adequately provided
for solving the problems in the area above and
below Irving Avenue.
Christmas lights are seen at the Astoria Column in 1971.
Rosemary Baker-Monaghan, then executive director
of the Liberty Theatre, describes the work needed to
complete the restoration on part of the second ﬂ oor of
the performing arts space in 2011.
They want more.
About 40 young people and the older people and the
people in between who gathered at Astoria High School
Wednesday night felt they had communicated with each
other. As a consequence, the third and supposedly ﬁ nal
“r ap s ession” sponsored by the District 1 c ouncil of the
g overnor’s Commission on Youth may be continued.
The rap sessions that follow may be slightly diﬀ erent
from those that have passed, for participants had some
suggestions on how to improve the sessions. For one
thing, the main thing, they’d like the session to be open
ended, without a ﬁ xed break-up time.
Young people, particularly, commented on the time it
takes for strangers in a group to warm up to each other, get
past the testing stage and into the point of real communi-
cation. There is also some talk of moving the sessions out
of the school environment in hopes of getting more adults
to attend them.
75 years ago — 1946
First of the fast Norwegian motor ships of the Fruit
Express line to enter the Columbia River since the war is
Members of the Astoria Kiwanis cut holly for their annual
Christmas holly sale in 1971.
now in Portland.
She is the 18-knot Paciﬁ c Express, a refrigerated ship
with a capacity of 110,000 boxes of apples and pears or in
excess of 70,000 cases of lemons, grapefruit and oranges.
Besides carrying citrons and fruits, the ship has accom-
modations for 12 ﬁ rst class passengers. She plies between
the Paciﬁ c coast and Europe. Her European ports of call
are Gothenburg and London.
A new Oregon Express, named after the ﬁ rst one,
which was a North Atlantic war casualty, has been built.
The Fruit Express line had ships ordered in Sweden when
Norway was invaded. These were ready for business
when the Nazis went out of business.
That big spoonful of cranberry sauce — on
your plate, there, next to the white meat — prob-
ably came from a spot right close to home, a
cranberry bog in Clatsop County.
I t doesn’t take much land to grow 50 tons
of cranberries. A little over 40 acres will do the
trick, and those acres are located just north of
Gearhart.
Work on construction of facilities for the Columbia
River group of the ﬂ eet is expected to be ﬁ nished by the
end of October 1947, Capt. H.C. Fischer, public works
oﬃ cer of the 13th naval district, told the c hamber of c om-
merce in a U.S. Navy D ay speech at Amato’s Saturday
noon.
Rambeau Flying S ervice today became the
second Astoria ﬂ ying school to obtain authoriza-
tion for pilot training under the GI B ill , accord-
ing to L.R. Chadwick, manager of the service.
The school already has several applicants for
ﬂ ight training, and more veterans are applying
all the time.
The burning wreckage of an airplane in east Astoria in 1971.
The c hamber of c ommerce and city will investigate the
possibility of obtaining surplus U.S. N avy barracks at the
Astoria air station for conversion into temporary housing
to ease the acute housing shortage .
Decision to make this investigation was reached at a
meeting of the chamber and city housing committee on
Tuesday afternoon.