10 years ago this week — 2013

CANNON BEACH — What started out nearly 25 years ago as a small neighborhood parade on Monroe Street in Cannon Beach has grown to a full-scale march down Spruce and Hemlock streets, all the way to the American Legion building in midtown.

On Thursday, the parade included anyone who wanted to enter, including their dogs and horses. Thousands stood along the sidewalks in the center of town to wave and applaud as their favorite entry — probably a relative or neighbor dressed in red, white and blue — passed by.

Retired Sgt. 1st Class Terry Cassell was the parade’s grand marshal. Cassell spent his childhood summers in Cannon Beach and is a longtime volunteer with the American Legion.

As usual, kids scrambled for candy, thrown from fire trucks, classic cars or by walkers or those crowded into the bed of a decorated truck.

SEASIDE — Miss Southern Gem Allison Cook was crowned the 76th Miss Oregon Saturday night in Seaside.

Cook, whose platform was “Athletic Concussion Awareness,” was floored by the reality that she would be competing in the Miss America pageant in September.

“I can barely breathe right now, to be honest with you,” Cook, the newly crowned Miss Oregon, said just after her victory. “It’s such a blessing, and I cannot wait to begin my year.”

Clatsop County performed well in the 2013 scholarship competition. Miss Cascade Anna Kaim, a 14-year-old student at Seaside High School, was the second runner-up in the Miss Outstanding Teen competition, while Miss Clatsop County, Alexis Mather, 18, was a semifinalist at the Miss Oregon main event.

The Seaside and Astoria junior state baseball teams met in a nonleague double-dip Tuesday night at Aiken Field for a possible playoff preview as district tournament action begins next week at Seaside.

And Dane Gouge’s Astoria Ford team got the best of the Gulls in Tuesday’s meeting, sweeping the doubleheader 11-3 and 5-4.

Regional news outlets reported in April that Seattle-based Foss Maritime Co. had announced its intention to leave operations in the Columbia and Snake rivers to Tidewater Barge Lines, consolidate in the Puget Sound and lay off 60 of its workers.

Now Foss tells a different story.

“Foss Maritime Co. had never reached a decision to exit the Columbia (and) Snake river markets,” said Scott Merritt, senior vice president of operation, in a news release, adding that his company had entertained offers but never made a deal.

50 years ago — 1973

Paper caps, sparklers and snakes that contain a small amount of explosive material are the only fireworks legally allowed in Oregon.

Even so, Oregon fire officials and the National Society for Prevention of Blindness urge parents to exercise special care in celebrating the Fourth of July by setting off fireworks.

The National Fire Protection Association predicted this week that some 10,000 Americans will be victims of fireworks mishaps during the Independence Day celebration nationwide.

Charles S. Morgan, president of the international fire safety organization, said fireworks bootleggers make it easy for Americans to observe the Fourth of July with “toys” capable of burning, blinding, maiming and even killing them.

Of particular concern in Oregon are the so-called “safe and sane” fireworks which are legal in neighboring Washington state and California, but illegal here.

The National Society for the Prevention of Blindness claims 42% of all fireworks accidents involve devices labeled and marketed as “safe and sane.”

American Metal Climax Co., testified Friday that its plans to build an aluminum reduction plant in Warrenton “would be frustrated” if the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission adopts proposed pollution control standards in their present form.

Officials from the only two aluminum companies with plants now operating in Oregon — Reynolds in Troutdale and Martin-Marietta in The Dalles — hinted rather strongly that enforcing the proposed standards might result in plant closures.

The Astoria City Council voted Monday night to pay a subsidy of $400 a month to a private bus service under a three-month contract extension already approved by the City Council.

At its last regular meeting on June 18, the City Council voted to continue the present contract with Pacific Coach Lines, which expired June 30, for three months.

The extension was to allow time for the Transportation Committee to present the City Council with a proposal, which could be submitted to voters in order to sample public opinion concerning continuation of the subsidy.

The Fourth of July holiday ended Wednesday night with a boom and a bang as public and private fireworks displays lit cloudy North Coast skies.

Clatsop County residents and visitors alike flocked to Seaside and the beach for the annual dramatization of “the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air.”

By the time it was dark enough for the fireworks, the beach, dotted with driftwood fires, looked like an encampment of Caesar’s legions.

The sounds of people yelling, dogs barking and the frequent reports of illegal firecrackers and the flash of sparklers and colored fountains added to the illusion.

The 30-minute, $1,300 fireworks display went off without a hitch, said Seaside volunteer fireman Jim Hurd, who helped launch the hundreds of paper shells that burst into airborne designs.

A warm west wind kept the North Coast comfortable in the misty rain, which tried to dampen holiday spirits, but quit in time for the fireworks displays.

“It was a little lighter than usual,” one Seaside motel owner said. “I do think people are a little scared because of the possible gas shortage.”

75 years ago — 1948

The Northwest began to brace itself today for a two-day Fourth of July holiday.

Closed banks, post offices and most businesses, fair weather, fireworks, rodeos and pageants loomed Sunday and Monday.

All Astoria business firms will be closed Sunday and Monday, the Astoria Chamber of Commerce said Friday.

Fourth of July weekend festivities, with more than the usual flood of traffic expected, prompted Astoria Police Chief C.M. Leding to urge “every citizen to take special precautions in an effort to save both lives and property over the Fourth.”

Leding pointed out that the principal factor in the expected flood of holiday traffic is the number of new cars produced during the past few months. “The Fourth this year will be a time of real hazard,” Leding said.

When he begins his return voyage to Denmark on July 13, Christen J. Christensen will have a head full of impressions of a country of gleaming kitchens and heavy-laden fruit trees.

Christensen, who has been visiting the home of his brother, L.C. Mart, since May, picked out modern kitchens and orchards as two of the most memorable features of the United States. These are in addition, of course, to the pleasure of visiting family members he had not seen for many years.

Business picked up in Astoria’s police department in the month of June, the monthly report of C.M. Leding, chief of police, revealed Wednesday.

One phase of this increasing business indicated that Astoria concerns are becoming increasingly careless in the matter of leaving doors, windows and safes open overnight. Patrolmen reported 71 such occurrences in the month of June, as compared with 58 in May and 48 in April.

Police warned that leaving doors, windows and safes unlocked overnight invites intrusion of thieves and burglars.

Reclamation Bureau planners are preparing to find out in the next two years if it is possible to get Columbia River water out of southern California faucets.

Congress gave them enough money to start what they call a “reconnaissance report” during the fiscal year ending next June 30.

They estimate it will take two years to learn once and for all if they can tap the mighty Northwest river for its surplus and bring the water down through California.

Preliminary diggings were started Friday morning by Louis Caywood, archeologist of the National Park Service, in the project of locating the missing Fort Clatsop.

Caywood has dug down about 2 feet at a place a few yards north of the present fort site marker. He said that he encountered an unusual amount of charcoal. The layer extended fairly deep.

Whether the charcoal is from the old Shane house, which stood nearby, or the remains of the old fort cannot possibly be determined yet. However, Caywood said that this find is as yet no real evidence.

Caywood intends to dig a long trench to see if the charcoal layer continues. It is also possible that in so doing, a portion of the burned wall of the old fort may be uncovered.