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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022
THE ASTORIAN
• TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022 •
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WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week – 2012
he Port of Astoria is offi cially in slowdown mode,
stalling many projects and trying to rebuild its
cash reserves.
At the same time, the Infrastructure Finance Author-
ity, an arm of the Oregon Business Development Depart-
ment that provides fi nancing on various infrastruc-
ture projects to agencies like the Port, wants to have a
friendly talk about its debt and what it is doing to remain
solvent.
“Obviously, they have a recent track record of not
having the revenues to match the expenses,” said Lynn
Schoessler, director of Business Oregon and the IFA.
“Obviously, they won’t make it to 2017 if they sustain
these ongoing losses.”
Schoessler and Deputy Director Dave Harlan, a for-
mer Port reporter for The Daily Astorian and former
director of the Port of Hood River, said they need to sit
down with staff and the new Executive Director Hank
Bynaker and talk about what the Port’s fi nancial real-
ity is and what it needs to do to keep making its debt
payments.
T
Remember the guys who went around col-
lecting Christmas trees for salmon back in
January?
Well, they fi nally sank the trees into some
salmon habitat a little over a week ago.
As wetlands consulting Doug Ray told me
months ago, old brown Christmas trees are
“Like magnets for fi sh.” They provide cover
from predators and fodder for the base of the
food chain.
Seaside’s Necanicum River provides valu-
able habitat for wild coastal coho, Ray said, but
in the summer the baby salmon that haven’t left
for the ocean yet are vulnerable to predators.
KNAPPTON COVE, Wash. — The Pacifi c North-
west’s own Ellis Island celebrated its 100th anniversary
Saturday.
The Columbia River Quarantine Station at Knappton
Cove operated between 1899 and 1938, inspecting thou-
sands of European and Asian immigrants.
“The primary reason we’re celebrating the 100th
anniversary now is even though the station was operat-
ing 1899, the hospital building was built in 1912, said
Nancy Bell Anderson, whose family has owned the
property since the 1950s.
The hospital building, called a “lazaretto,” which
means “pesthouse,” is a special quarantining hospital
built specifi cally for people who had infectious diseases.
“This is such a feather in our cap: this is the only one
left on the West Coast,” Anderson said.
The property was named a National Historic Site in
1980, and the hospital building houses a museum run by
the non profi t Knappton Cove Heritage Center.
2012 – Present and former U.S. Public Health Service workers pose in front of the Knappton Cove Heritage Center at the
100-year anniversary.
2012 — Logs are lifted by crane onto the IVS Kestrel cargo
ship at the Westerlund Log Handlers loading site near
the docked Crystal Symphony cruise ship at the Port of
Astoria.
land and tried to get rid of another ferryboat without
success.
The commission had scheduled a bid opening for
purchase of the old ferry North Beach, now laid up at
the Astoria Marine Construction Co. shipyard, but no
bid was received. Apparently, no one wants to buy the
vessel, which is in poor condition.
The Pacifi c Explorer arrived early today
from Costa Rica with a light load of 2,272
tons of yellowfi n tuna. She is berthed on the
west side of P ier 2.
Unloading of the ship is expected to take
two or more days. The tuna are hoisted out of
the refrigerated holds of the fi sheries vessel
in hoppers and discharged into large trucks
for transportation to the CRPA cold storage
in U ppertown.
In the crew of 55 men, which included the
refrigeration engineers and workmen, were
a number of natives of Costa Rica who will
return to their native land. They replaced
employees of the Pacifi c Exploration com-
pany who quit in the course of the six months’
stay of the ship in the heat off Punta renas.
A cougar has been spotted in the city of Asto-
ria and for some, it may be too close for comfort.
The feline was reported just after 10:00 p.m.
Saturday near Sixth Street and Irving Avenue.
“I just happened to be in my backyard, and I
looked over in the adjacent backyard and said,
“M y word, that’s a cougar,’” Al Jaques said.
“It was a cougar. And by the time I went inside
to get my camera and come back out, it had
disappeared.
50 years ago – 1972
Members of the Astoria High School band have
returned from a 41-day European tour – and many of the
youths were ready to go back.
Gathered at a “welcome-home” picnic at Tapiola Park
Saturday, 43 students and fi ve adult companions seemed
glad to be home and were full of tourist stories.
The touring musicians performed in six nations,
including Russia, and took a quick side trip through East
Germany.
A young boy, a fl at baseball mitt dangling
from his wrist and a pink bubble of gum peri-
odically bursting through his smile, tugged on
his mother’s arm and asked:
“Who’s Clark and Lewis , Mom?”
A natural question.
A two-day-long Lewis and Clark Sympo-
sium was held over the weekend to answer that
question in the most natural way – fi rsthand.
People were invited to revisit signifi cant
points of interest along the Washington and
Oregon coasts near the mouth of the Colum-
bia River where the Lewis and Clark expedi-
tion camped in the winter of 1805-06.
Washington and Oregon Lewis and Clark
Trail groups jointly sponsored the symposium,
which their members hope will become an
annual event.
The dual role of the Oregon National Guard’s 1249th
Engineering Battalion is demonstrated by Company
C squad members, from Albany, as they pour from a
“Huey” and hit the beach. Normally the guardsmen per-
form engineering functions, but the air-mobility maneu-
vers are also part of the annual two-week fi eld training
at Camp Rilea.
LONG BEACH, Wash. — Employment
– the availability of it or lack of it – is a con-
cern everywhere, but there is something unique
about the way it’s being handled on the Long
Beach Peninsula.
Each Wednesday, a Volkswagen bus pulls
into the parking lot of the Long Beach Plaza.
A bearded man with dark glasses and a cow-
boy hat steps out bringing with him a card table
and two chairs, which he sets next to the bus,
and two signs, which he hangs in the window.
After the ritual is fi nished, he’s in business.
2012 – Fishermen with the Tualatin Valley chapter of
Trout Unlimited and the Rainland Flycasters submerged
hundreds of donated Christmas trees in a stretch of the
Necanicum River near Seaside. The trees were strung
together and anchored to the riverbank to provide cover
and food for baby coho.
Walter Hannu, Astoria outboard motorboat skip-
per, was fi shed out of the racecourse at the Astoria
Yacht C lub Sunday when his craft ran into bumpy
water and overturned.
His competitors came to the rescue, which resulted
in the race being called off . Both skipper and boat
escaped without harm.
1972 – Astoria policeman John Clements stood guard at
the new Astoria branch of U.S. National Bank on Duane
Street.
1972 – Ed Shaff er at his offi ce at Long Beach.
The man is not there to lure passersby to a
quick game of chance or to sell something, but
to talk to people about jobs. He is E d Shaff er of
the P acifi c County Employment Security Offi ce.
Port of Astoria commissioners formally approved this
week a resolution asking the Oregon Legislature to study
the establishment, fi nancing and operation of a superport
in the l ower Columbia River.
State management is needed, the resolution says,
because it is economically impossible for small ports “to
construct and operate the facilities necessary to handle
economically the exports produced by the s tate.”
If the s tate doesn’t undertake construction of a super-
port, the resolution adds, “shipping on the Columbia
River and the facilities for handling exports from Ore-
gon will deteriorate to the detriment of the entire s tate.”
75 years ago — 1947
The state highway commission Monday witnessed
keel-laying of the new Astoria-Megler ferry in Port-
FORT STEVENS – The announcement
today that historic Fort Stevens has been
declared “surplus to the A rmy’s needs” and
will be turned over to the U.S. e ngineers for
disposal has opened to the Astorian Budget
the offi cial post records that have been classi-
fi ed a military secret since President Millard
Fillmore ordered the post established Feb.
24, 1852.
Capt. Kenneth Hawkes, commanding offi -
cer of the 95-year-old A rmy post, said today
that he expected to complete his work and
release all units of Forts Stevens, Canby and
Columbia to the engineers in about 60 days.
Among the offi cial records of the post was
the account of the now-famous attack by a
Japanese submarine on the night of June 21,
1942. The army has highlighted the historic
value of this report by claiming that it is the
fi rst enemy attack on a continental U.S. m ili-
tary establishment since the War of 1812.
FORT STEVENS – The city of Hammond is in the
process of obtaining the historic Fort Stevens ceme-
tery and its 148 graves, Capt. Kenneth Hawkes, com-
manding offi cer, said today.
The fi rst burial was made in the old cemetery in
May, 1864, when William Chester Lane, private, and
member of the Ninth Infantry, was moved from a
grave at Fort Canby.
That same year, Luke and James Henry Lane were
buried there, apparently all members of the same fam-
ily, the A rmy’s record book revealed.
Several women, believed to be washerwomen for
the fort’s batteries, are buried there along with other
civilians.
The last burial there was that of Capt. David Miller,
ordnance offi cer of the post, who died March 7,
1943.