10 years ago this week – 2012

SEASIDE — Fire crews were called to the scene of a three-alarm fire at 9:26 a.m. Tuesday at the intersection of Avenue B and U.S. Highway 101.

Cannon Beach, Hamlet Rural Fire Department, Gearhart and Warrenton personnel were also called in to help tackle the fire or standby at neighboring stations.

Other agencies, including as far away as Tillamook, were put on alert as authorities checked on the extent of the blaze.

Thick black smoke billowed up into the sky mid-morning and flames were seen emanating from multiple businesses and many passersby stopped to look. There were unconfirmed reports of an explosion.

Police Chief Bob Gross said the fire began at the former laundromat and a home listed for sale with Omega Realty, then spread to Seaside Foods on Avenue A behind the building.

Mariachi music filled the St. Mary, Star of the Sea gymnasium Sunday as North Coast residents and visitors celebrated Mexican Independence Day.

Amid decorations that represented the red, white and green colors of the Mexican flag, partygoers tapped their toes to the melodies provided by The Mariachi Corona Continental band.

The event was sponsored by Coast Community Radio with help from the Oregon Cultural Trust. Members of the Lower Columbia Hispanic Council, led by executive director Norma Hernandez, were among those taking part. They provided dinner, which consisted of rice with pigeon peas and pork, beans, enchilada casserole, tamales and sweet Mexican bread. Organizers offered games, including the traditional swing at a pinata.

For history buffs, Sept. 16 marks the day in 1820 when Mexican men declared war on their Spanish colonial oppression. The war lasted 11 years.

The U.S. Coast Guard came to the aid of three people aboard a distressed sailing vessel just outside the Columbia River entrance Wednesday, preventing what could have otherwise been a deadly situation.

Three people aboard the 40-foot trimaran sailing vessel Patsy Stone ran into trouble at approximately 2 p.m. after experiencing an engine failure and hiring a company to tow them back to shore.

As it rests under the water of a bioswale at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, a yellow Frisbee will slowly be taken over by an invader from within.

Already dotting the Frisbee’s rock and plant neighbors under the shallow stream are tiny snails, each no larger than a few millimeters. They’re the invader, and soon they’ll turn the Frisbee into a barely recognizable, mollusk-encrusted home.

Park officials placed the Frisbee near Netul Landing to see exactly how long it would take for the snails to take over. Other invasive species, such as the tiny zebra mussel in Northern California, have been known to completely envelop a size-12 boot submerged in a body of water in no more than 11 weeks.

For such a tiny critter, the New Zealand mud snail has become a feared invasive species at the park, and throughout the Pacific Northwest.

50 years ago — 1972

Since 1966, Astoria High School students have won $7,400 in AFL-CIO scholarship awards. In 1969, four of the five winners from Oregon were from Astoria. How have they done it?

Rose Tolonen, a school teacher and adviser, said she told those attending the state AFL-CIO convention in Seaside this year her “recipe” for success:

“Take any number of interested, college-bound seniors … Marinate for three to four weeks in a blend of study guides, pamphlets, books and questions well seasoned with labor-union information … Sprinkle frequently with encouragement and periodical tests with pointed questions … About one week before the final testing, saturate daily if possible with additional questions.

“On the day of the final test, spread evenly in a quiet room and let stew for approximately two hours before turning off the heat. Submit samples to judges and pray for results.”

Tolonen said it’s not a foolproof recipe, “But we’ve tried it and we like it.”

Site preparation is underway for a resort hotel planned by Holiday Inn south of Seaside. The hotel is the first evidence of a 400-acre commercial and residential planned unit development proposed by Portland contractor Carl Halvorson. The site is south of Seaside Golf Course. Halverson’s development — “The Trees” — is part of 525 acres proposed for annexation by Seaside. Development will include condominium units, single-family homes, a mobile home park and water recreational facilities.

WARRENTON — The state Department of Environmental Quality says a “casual study” of the effects of log storage in the Skipanon River failed to reveal significant damage to the water quality of the river.

“The studies indicate some depression of the water quality in the river,” said Glen Carter, a department official. “But it doesn’t appear bad enough to ask for a halt to log storage in the river.”

Carter said further studies are planned in the river this fall to test water quality during higher levels.

A kidney taken from an auto accident victim in Astoria has been transplanted into a 52-year-old man in the Veterans Administration hospital in Portland. It was the first time a kidney-transplant removal had been performed in Clatsop County.

Clatsop County duck hunters, including those with float houses along the upriver islands of the Lower Columbia, are assured of continued hunting within the federal Lewis and Clark Wildlife Refuge.

The only exception, as in the past, is no hunting will be allowed on refuge land where the almost-extinct Columbian white-tailed deer exists.

75 years ago — 1947

SKAMOKAWA, Wash. — Officials of the Wahkiakum County Fair association were resting today after supervising over 1,000 exhibits and counting nearly 3,000 paid admissions during the two-day agriculture and stock show that ended Saturday.

Clear skies, local enthusiasm and more exhibition space helped make 1947 one of the greatest years since the famous Wahkiakum County fairs were started in 1910.

City school registration at the end of the first week of school totaled 1,504, an increase of 51 over the registration at the same time last year.

First-week attendance at schools, as enumerated in the city school superintendent’s office, is: Lewis and Clark, 533, Capt. Robert Gray 314, John Jacob Astor 282, high school 375.

It is the first time since January 1941 that total attendance has climbed above 1,500.

The city commission Monday night directed the city manager to confer with school officials to determine if it will be possible to ban football practice on Gyro field in case the city decides to put the turf of the football field in good condition.

The city was spurred by a suggestion that the Astoria Athletic Association might assist in the cost of maintaining the field in proper condition for football games.

H.C. McCallister, public works superintendent, told the commission that he has, in recent years, given up maintenance of the turf as hopeless since it was impossible to keep the football teams from conducting practice on the turf.

McCallister said that in the days of John Warren’s coaching regime at Astoria High, practice was confined to the unturfed areas south of the football field.

Two crewmen of the tugboat Albert Barkley begged the Astoria Police Department Thursday morning to search for an Oxford gray pinstriped suit.

“There’s a sailor inside of it,” they said. “We don’t know who or where he is, but we can’t go back on ship without that suit.”

Wednesday they met a sailor downtown and felt sorry for him in his service blues. They took him to the boat and loaned him the suit. It was the first mate’s suit.

They celebrated. They returned. They slept. The sailor left with his blues, and first mate’s suit.

First Mate James V. Wall went below decks after duty on watch. He found snoring seamen and no suit.

“The first mate wouldn’t even let us take time to put on good clothes,” crewmen said at the police station. “We think that fellow with the suit is a Navy man. No. Maybe he’s Coast Guard. Gosh! We don’t know.”

They laughed. “But this is sure a swell town,” they said. Anybody see an Oxford gray pinstriped suit?

Charles L. Judd has proved that perseverance wins, for he caught a 30-pound Chinook last week after spending seven of his nearly 80 summers patiently rowing up and down the mouth of the Nehalem River trying to hook a salmon.

Fishing alone in a rowboat, Judd played the fish for more than 30 minutes, and though almost too tired to hold the shining Chinook while his daughter, Mrs. William Anderson of Nehalem, snapped his picture, he wore a big smile as he said, “They didn’t think I could catch one, so I had to show ‘em.”