10 years ago this week — 2014

The National Park Service released a new economic report Monday that shows Lewis and Clark National Historical Park received more than 200,000 visitors in 2012, resulting in $10.8 million in total visitor spending for the area.

The agency also released the estimated economic toll the 16-day government shutdown had on parks and communities last fall.

The report indicates that compared to a three-year average, 7.88 million fewer national park visitors came in October. That resulted in an estimated loss of $414 million in visitor spending for all communities within 60 miles of national parks.

Scott Tucker, park superintendent for Lewis and Clark, said he was pleased that the park was able to make such an economic impact.

After nine weeks of checking off fitness activities and healthy food choices, participants in the Astoria Wellness Challenge are wrapping up the program and looking to the future.

The challenge focused less on weight loss and more on finding different ways to exercise and eat better. For more than two months, about 17 people took part and were offered yoga, Zumba, spin classes, weight training and a boot camp as well as other exercise activities.

The group also heard from a dietitian and exercise physiologist.

Some people joined to get fit for the upcoming summer or wanted to lose weight. But others just wanted to get healthier. Prizes were given based on their participation and random drawings.

When representatives from the Port of Astoria and Westerlund Log Handlers head to Washington, D.C., on Saturday, they will have one mission: revive Pier 3 into an export dock, hopefully with the federal government’s help.

A main target for the large project, with an estimated cost of anywhere between $6 million to $11 million depending on buildout options, is clear: a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery Grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Pacific smelt are back on the menu for the first time in more than three years at local seafood markets after a recent decision earlier this month by the Oregon and Washington state departments of fish and wildlife.

The small fish are more properly known as Thaleichthys pacificus, candlefish and hooligans.

On average, they are 8.5 inches long, weigh 2.5 ounces and are running between $4 to $5 a pound fresh at local markets such as Northwest Wild Products, Warrenton Deep Sea, Skipanon Brand Seafood and Seaside’s Bell Buoy since a limited commercial fishery on the Columbia River opened Feb. 10.

50 years ago — 1974

“Go Greyhound” has become the motto of a bunch of basketball lovers at Astoria Junior High School.

They tried to get a school bus for a trip to Forest Grove tonight for Astoria High School’s game with Dallas for a playoff spot.

They failed, so they rented a Greyhound bus instead.

The high school is sending three rooter buses and other school buses available. But there is reportedly some district policy against letting junior high school students use them.

No one seems to be sure today exactly what the policy says, officials pointing to the superintendent as the man who knows. However, he is out of town attending a conference.

Not to be put off, the students lined up the bus, secured their own gasoline supply, signed several chaperones, cranked out parental permission slips, collared a full load of youthful passengers and got set to go.

“Persistent and organized,” junior high principal Jim Gascoigne said of them. He noted the younger students never had gone to an away game by bus, let alone by making the entire effort without adult aid.

Even though they and their comrades will be paying $5 a head instead of $2 like the high school rooters, they have beaten the bureaucracy for a moral victory.

“Go Greyhound,” as they say at the junior high.

More than 200 Astorians turned out last Saturday night to celebrate the 139th anniversary of the publication of a book.

These Astorians joined thousands of others of Finnish descent in a festival commemorating the publication of the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala.

This is perhaps the only book in the world whose publication date is a festival day for a whole nation.

The observance was held in Suomi Hall and sponsored by the Finnish Brotherhood Lodge, and it was the first time the lodge had conducted a major public celebration of the event.

Kalevala Day has been set aside by the Finnish government to commemorate the nation’s first and foremost literary work, one which reduced to writing a great collection of ancient, orally-transmitted folk legends, songs and incantations which originated far in the remote past.

CANNON BEACH — The marble-sized piece of black substance picked up on the beach in Cannon Beach Tuesday was soft and sticky and it smelled of oil.

Overhead, three gulls squawked as they circled the beach, perhaps protesting the invasion of their home by millions of the unpleasant black dots, changing from penny-size to softball-size pieces.

Identified as globs of thick, greasy ship’s fuel by the U.S. Coast Guard, the oily balls rolled onto the wet beach Monday and parked in a long thin line from Ecola Park south to Tolovana Park. A two-man Coast Guard crew reported no serious damage to wildlife and plant life.

Six intricately crafted model ships constructed by master model maker Lloyd McCaffery, of Oregon City, were recently donated to the Columbia River Maritime Museum by McKee A. Smith, of Portland.

Among the McCaffery models is the four-masted bark Wanderer of Liverpool, England, built of steel in 1861 and later rammed and sunk off the mouth of the Elbe River in 1907.

Other models include the three-masted ships Mount Stewart, Lock Etive, and Benjamin F. Packard and the four-masted bark falls of Halladale.

75 years ago — 1949

SEASIDE — A large delegation of residents of the beach area at the north end of the city attended a City Council meeting Monday night to urge that immediate steps be taken to safeguard their property against the pounding surf of the Pacific Ocean.

The sea, it was reported, continues to cut at the banks of the sandpit at the north end of the city. Since Friday, it has washed out sand for 200 feet south from the recently completed breakwater on the Necanicum River and back for a distance of 200 feet.

Complete sellout of all 11,000 copies of the annual Sunset Empire edition of the Astorian-Budget was reported Wednesday by John Verschueren, circulation manager of the newspaper.

It was the greatest sale of any annual edition in the history of the newspaper.

Looking forward to the biggest spring opening and style show in the history of the organization, the Retail Merchants Committee of the Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce met Tuesday at the chamber’s offices to discuss plans for the annual event set for March 25 at the Astoria Armory.

Slated to appear on the program before the style show is the ladies’ chorus of the Elks and the Elks band.

SEASIDE — A resolution to create a special improvement district, with construction of a sea wall to protect surf-threatened beach property, was passed by the city council Wednesday night.

Creation of the district followed pleas of property owners of the area for protection from threatening surf.

The Lower Columbia Cooperative Dairy Association sold products worth $3,139,668 in 1948 for the greatest dollar volume of business in its history despite floods and bad weather that cut production by about 14%.

The Astoria Regatta Association Friday made formal transfer of the Salmon Derby, Regatta and $13,257 to the Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce, stipulating that the money be held for Regatta and Salmon Derby purposes exclusively.

The formal transfer was made at a special Regatta board meeting attended by eight of the nine board members.

It was made after legal opinion had been obtained that it had the power to transfer the functions and funds, and that it had the power to bind the chamber to use the money solely for the purposes stipulated.

The Del Mar cannery in Warrenton is not being dismantled for transfer to Peru, according to Edward David, head of the company, who has just returned from an eastern trip.

David denied rumors which have been current in the community for several weeks that the cannery is to be removed to the South American nation.

“Del Mar has been approached during the past year by several concerns with a request to go into a deal outside the United States,” David said.

Deepening of the Columbia River bar beyond its present project depth of 40 feet might involve an expenditure of $50 million or more of federal money if approved by army engineers, Secretary Al Hetzel, of the Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce, reported to the chamber board on Friday.