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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2022
THE ASTORIAN
• TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2022
•
B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2012
G
EARHART — Maybe the fourth time will be
the charm.
The fourth incarnation of the Gearhart Hotel,
operated by McMenamins, will open on Friday.
A grand opening celebration — with a golf tourna-
ment, music and tasting of McMenamins’ ales, wines
and spirits — is planned for Memorial Day weekend.
Located on the top ﬂ oor of the historic Kelly House,
which already is home to McMenamins Sand Trap Pub
and the Gearhart Golf Links pro shop, the hotel will
include 18 rooms.
Heading the charge up a steep incline on
Astoria’s hilly southern side, Steven Blakes-
ley leads a trailing collection of Clatsop C ounty
employees like a Pied Piper of ﬁ tness.
The county’s healthy communities educator
walks every day during his break from work.
The only days he doesn’t walk is when the
weather is foul — really foul.
“The rain has to be going sideways,” he said .
But as the weather changes from gloomy to
sunny, Blakesley has unveiled a series of walk-
ing maps as part of a program started May 1 he
hopes will convince people to take 30 minutes
out of the workday to walk.
Though the maps are tailored to county
employees, with each of the seven routes start-
ing from the county’s oﬃ ces downtown , Blakes-
ley said he believes the maps could work for
any Astoria-based employer.
His idea for the walking maps is to motivate
people to think about getting up and moving
during the day.
Junior Warren Skirvin, left, and freshman Stacey Oho, part of Knappa’s forestry team, sawed their way to a ﬁ rst-place
ﬁ nish in the crosscut contest at the annual state competition in Corvallis in 2012.
use of Clatsop Airport, subject to details being worked
out to protect the Port and lease arrangements for a sta-
tion, which were to be negotiated this morning between
airline oﬃ cials and Port Manager C.E. “Ted” Hodges.
75 years ago — 1947
Many Astorians and other Oregonians joined in cele-
brating the clam festival Sunday in Long Beach, Wash-
ington, where several thousand beach visitors feasted on
clamburgers and clam chowder.
For three hours, beginning at noon, the Long Beach
festival chefs fried clams and poured out clam chowder
at the ﬁ eld kitchen.
A half hour before the frying of clams began, the
cooks put a ﬁ re under their large frying pan. Into the
pan went cakes of lard, weighing 50 pounds. The clams,
rolled in crumbs, were “French fried” in delicious mor-
sels and then stuﬀ ed into buns.
There is a reason Knappa High School’s nickname is
the Loggers.
And some three dozen students have just shown why.
For the second consecutive year, the school’s forestry
team has returned from the state competition at Peavy
Arboretum in Corvallis with the ﬁ rst-place team trophy.
Teacher Jeﬀ Skirvin said the program has only existed
for ﬁ ve years and Knappa has won three times. It was
the smallest school represented but Knappa brought the
largest team to the event.
Students from six high schools competed in a vari-
ety of activities over a two-day period. Events included
job interviewing, public speaking, tree identiﬁ cation and
timber cruising.
Knappa students fared well, with Warren Skirvin tak-
ing ﬁ rst in speech, Nick Landwehr earning top honors in
map reading and Chris Whitworth earning second place
in the job interview category.
The second day was ﬁ lled with skills events, includ-
ing crosscut sawing, cable splicing, speed climbing and
choker-setting.
50 years ago — 1972
Homage to “Our Nation’s Patriots” was paid by sev-
eral thousand at Washington’s Loyalty Days P arade Sun-
day afternoon with more than 100 entries.
The 123rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the Air
National Guard Portland ﬂ ew over at the start of the
parade in formation and made a second pass performing
its missing man formation, honoring prisoners in South-
east Asia.
The U.S. Coast Guard also performed a ﬂ y-over with
two helicopters.
Owner Sam Valentine of Sam’s Place is look-
ing for another location, but for now, and prob-
ably through the summer, Sam’s Place will
remain at 1120 Marine Drive.
Valentine describes the new business as a
“place where the whole family can go if they
want to play pool. We ﬁ gured the kids should
have a decent place to go and we plan to main-
tain a clean place here,” he said.
Besides pool tables, Sam’s Place also oﬀ ers
games of skill including several amusement
devices.
The director of the state Department of Environ-
mental Quality held to his position today that American
Metal Climax won’t be considered for a permit to build
The USO will probably continue its opera-
tions in Astoria until the end of the year.
Upon request of USO division headquar-
ters in San Francisco, Brig. Gen. Raymond B.
Olson, acting adjutant general of Oregon, this
morning signed an extension of the lease of the
A rmory building to Dec. 31, 1947.
I t was the general understanding that the
USO would close its operations here July 1,
and the news of the change came as a surprise
locally.
Clatsop County employee Suzanne Johnson, right, and
Nancy Ledgerwood walk up a narrow walking path near the
county oﬃ ces as part of Shape Up Across Oregon in 2012.
an aluminum plant in Warrenton until an environmental
impact study that may take 18 months to do. Comments
from L.B. Day made it fairly clear AMAX couldn’t start
building until mid-1974.
Between 60 and 70 Astoria High School anti-
war protesters marched through the streets of
Astoria and demonstrated in front of the p ost
o ﬃ ce on Tuesday afternoon, following an ear-
lier demonstration at the high school.
The protests were generally against Pres-
ident Richard Nixon’s announcement that
North Vietnam harbors would be mined and
rail lines bombed , according to Warren Bech-
tolt, high school senior and a spokesman for the
group.
The high school demonstration developed
into a confrontation between the protesters, the
administration and students who spoke in favor
of Nixon’s decision.
Except for working out the legal details, Clatsop
County has a new airline service, oﬀ ering two round-
trip ﬂ ights daily between Portland and Seattle. Flights
will begin Monday.
The Port of Astoria Commission on Tuesday night
granted Eagle Airlines, of Port Angeles, Washington ,
Students at Astoria High School demonstrate against the war in Vietnam in 1972.
Sam’s Place in Astoria in 1972.
The center section of the Lovell Auto Co. building
roof slowly sagged, then cracked and plunged down
upon the second ﬂ oor of the building this morning while
company workmen hurriedly removed a ﬂ oor of cars
from beneath the sagging roof timbers.
A section of roof 125 by 100 feet in area let go and
dropped to the second ﬂ oor as a result of the collapse of
a truss in the middle of the section of roof.
The roof sank slowly for 10 to 15 minutes, giving 17
workmen time to remove most of the cars stored on that
part of the second ﬂ oor. Finally the whole thing let go
with a crack, the huge beams and other roof and truss
timbers tumbling down to the ﬂ oor.
An electronics warfare platoon, which is
expected to be the forerunner of a full company
here, was organized last night by Lt. Comdr.
Stewart Tatro of the 13th naval district at a
meeting of naval reservists.
Tatro explained to nearly 60 reservists that
the district was attempting to increase its quota
of electronic companies and that if authoriza-
tion for a unit was received that Astoria would
have a full company organized and eligible to
receive pay.
Since the company will not receive any N avy
funds until it is authorized and organized, the
biggest problem of the local reservists is that
of locating and maintaining a meeting place to
house naval radio, radar and sonar equipment.