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.

10 years ago this week — 2011

Lucien Swerdloff’s historic preservation and restoration students from Clatsop Community College have just finished their first term of workshops in Astoria’s derelict train depot.

They were chipping through lead paint, removing asbestos-laden glazing putty and otherwise restoring windows 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.

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 nontraditional 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 definitely 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 families 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 authenticity; 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 firm, Eastlan 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, teachers and school board members. The first session, a week earlier, drew around 50.

After Thursday night’s group reassembled before adjournment, Jim Sharp, director of the Clatsop Mental Health Clinic, asked if anyone could explain the light turnout.

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 first 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 somebody’s car fender, may get some satisfaction from a Seaside police mishap early this week. It seems two police cars collided.

The 85th anniversary of the founding of the Astoria Finnish Brotherhood Lodge will be celebrated with a program Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at Suomi Hall. Col. Delbert 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 musical 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 1860s and early 1870s. Many of them had come earlier to San Francisco as seamen, where a group of Finns had organized a sickness and funeral benefit organization four years earlier. Most of the early Finnish settlers, who were attracted here primarily by the salmon fishing industry, came via San Francisco where the first transcontinental railroad, completed in 1896, had its terminus.

The lodge had its early beginnings as a mutual aid society 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 fire watch over the Columbia National Forest.

Envelopes to be mailed on the first airmail flight out of Astoria were piling up today by the thousands in the post office as the first preliminary flight of West Coast Airlines took off here.

The letters have been sent by stamp collectors from all over the nation.

Airmail service from Astoria will be inaugurated with the first commercial flight of West Coast Airlines, which had been tentatively scheduled for Friday but has been postponed.

A thorough and detailed survey of Astoria street lighting needs to have been begun by John F. Whitney, street lighting consultant of the Pacific 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 City Commission, which several weeks ago formally called upon the power company to make the survey, as a preliminary to an attempted modernization of the city’s street lighting.

A giant neon-lighted red cross may be erected atop the Astoria Column on Coxcomb Hill during Christmas week if plans of the chamber of commerce 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 benefit 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.

For the first time in the memory of City Hall’s “oldest inhabitants,” the City Commission 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.