1974 — A sign of the times at Prairie Market in Astoria.

10 years ago this week — 2014

ILWACO, Wash. — Soon, the dredge at work in Ilwaco’s Baker Bay will likely be gone, but the battle to keep a vital channel open will only begin again.

The small ports of Ilwaco and Chinook secured funding this year by making a “pest” of themselves, as Jim Neva, former Port of Ilwaco manager, said this summer. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is tasked with maintaining the channels leading into the two ports, put aside more than $1.8 million for dredge work, planning to remove close to 100,000 cubic yards of material.

It was good news for the ports and even better news followed for small ports across the country. In June, President Barack Obama signed the Water Resources and Development Act.

The Christmas Club struck Astoria again.

A small army of volunteers threaded garlands, hung ornaments and manned the cannon at the Clatsop County Courthouse last weekend, continuing a 19-year tradition hearkening back to the 1950s and ’60s of decorating for the holidays.

WARRENTON — Traditionally, the holiday season is when food banks receive a boost in charitable donations to help keep up with mounting demands.

For the Clatsop Community Action Regional Food Bank, it has found ways to maintain demand year-round.

The CCA Regional Food Bank distributed a record-breaking 1,499,237 pounds of food through its partner agencies and own service programs over the last fiscal year, July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2014.

Operations manager Dusten Martin said the spike in food supply is a result of the food bank’s new distribution center in Warrenton and its focus on fresh food from its Mobile Produce Pantry.

“The Mobile Produce Pantry we feel has been the single program we have done that is the most successful,” Martin said. “From not only engaging the community, but taking care of those in need.”

ECOLA CREEK — Fighting against the current, salmon scramble across moss-coated rocks and hop over slippery logs. They can’t be bothered by the bald eagles, blue herons, elk, river otters and occasional mink that cross their paths.

Returning to the same rivers and creeks every 10 days, these field biologists with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife race against the short days of fall and winter trying to cover as much ground as possible in search of salmon — dead or alive.

Since 2010, Cannon Beach resident Scott Kirby has worked as ODFW’s North Coast monitoring crew leader that gathers information for the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds. He organizes ODFW field biologists to conduct spawning surveys for coho as well as supplemental and standard surveys for Chinook and chum salmon on waterways west of the Coast Range stretching from the Necanicum River near Seaside to the southern end of Tillamook County at Neskowin Creek.

Equipped with studded, felt-soled boots, chest waders, a gaff hook and machete, crews often blaze their own trails while observing coastal waterways through polarized glasses that help cut down on the glare and see what lies below the surface.

50 years ago — 1974

CANNON BEACH — Cannon Beach has an official marine zoo.

The Oregon Fish Commission created it at Haystack Rock last week by banning collection of all intertidal animals within a 300-yard radius of the rock, except by permit.

However, the ban doesn’t apply to two food animals there — blacksurf mussels and littleneck clams. The permit system will allow collection of animals primarily for scientific and educational purposes.

Concern was voiced over the possible depletion of the easily accessible rocky tide pools around the base of Haystack Rock by the thousands of visitors who visit it each year.

Most come to look, but many also come to collect the sea life that lives there.

The Clatsop Council on Alcoholism turned its attention to the D.K. Warren estate in Warrenton Monday as the possible site of an alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation center.

The now vacant home of Warrenton’s founder became the prime candidate for the center after strong neighborhood protest convinced the alcoholism council to scrap its first choice, a former Methodist parsonage on Grand Avenue in Astoria.

John Osburn, owner of the Warren property, has offered the building to the council for free rent in return for renovation work, a council spokesman said.

Continually rising sugar prices have caused homemakers across the nation to demand solutions to soaring prices, but helpful hints seem to be few and far between.

A government hearing investigating the quadrupling of the price of sugar this year has determined that there is no evidence of a conspiracy between the Soviet Union and some of the Arab nations to hoard or drive up the price of sugar, despite rumors to that effect.

Frank Madden, known as “Spike” to his friends, is a retired longshoreman who got bored and decided to do something about it.

Madden, who lost 40 pounds because of his inactivity, now is gaining it back by wielding an ax and splitting firewood from drift logs he cuts up along Astoria’s waterfront.

The spry, friendly 75-year-old Madden ropes loose drift logs at high tide, then goes to work on them at low tide. He keeps occupied three to four hours a day and says he has never been happier.

Crab fishermen have begun laying their pots in preparation for the crab season’s opening Sunday. The fishermen’s opening price for crab is 50 cents per pound, down 5 cents from last year’s opening price.

Gayle Landwehr’s fourth grade class at Astor Elementary School turns into a busy workshop several days a week as Christmas nears.

Not unlike what one might imagine Santa’s workshop to look like, her 23 students are busy cutting, glueing and fashioning brightly colored Christmas stockings.

Turkey generally costs less this year than in 1973, making the main course for Thanksgiving dinners a rare bargain in this year of inflated food costs. The rest of the fixings on the table, including the stuffing and cranberries, were more expensive.

75 years ago — 1949

HAMMOND — The town of Hammond bid for and obtained 153 acres of Fort Stevens reservation containing 173 buildings for $62,000, Mayor Merton Olney announced on his return from Seattle, where on Friday he attended the bid opening conducted by the federal war assets division.

Mayor Olney said the town also bid $611 for a fire truck at Fort Stevens and got it for that amount, giving the community two fire trucks.

Mayor Olney and chairman James Cochran of the school board have gone to Portland on Tuesday to confer with war assets officials in an effort to get for nothing that portion of the fort the school district desires.

It includes 7 acres containing the lower parade ground, athletic field and several buildings.

A shark caught Aug. 29 by Fred Sandness, of 11th Street, had traveled 1,500 miles and grown approximately 4 inches in 104 days.

The California state division of fish and game notified Sandness that the tag he reported finding on the shark had been placed on it May 18, 1949, 5 miles southeast of Point Mugu, below Santa Barbara on the California coast.

Sandness caught the fish at Hecate Strait.

Approximately 300 sharks have been tagged this year by Oregon soupfin shark fishermen in cooperation with the Oregon State Fish commission, Sandness said. Information gained from the program is used in a coastwide study of the species.

Astoria was partly isolated from communication with “the outer world” for four and one-half hours Tuesday afternoon when a tree 5 feet in girth fell across telephone and telegraph lines, railroad tracks and the Columbia River highway a half-mile east of Woodson.

Both the primary and secondary telephone toll lead lines were put out of service at 2 p.m. The alternate lines normally used in emergency are mounted on the railroad lead, which also carries Western Union messages. These too were cut off by the tree.

The blockade was removed at 6:30 p.m. Meanwhile, motorists were forced to detour and long-distance phone calls east and south, all of which except those to Oregon Coast cities are normally routed through Portland, were recircuited through Seaside and Tillamook.

Church services, private dinners and parties and four-day vacation for all city and county schoolchildren are on tap Thursday as Astorians prepared to celebrate Thanksgiving.

A combination of rainstorm, heavy river swells, and three broken tow lines Wednesday evening interrupted operations of the Larson Construction company bucket dredge and kept a crew fighting to bring the dredge back to its location off the new mooring basin.

A commercial tug was called into service to bring the barge “home” again, Larson said. The battle against the channel swells lasted two hours, and put a temporary halt to the three-shift dredging work which supplies fill for the mooring basin breakwater.

America paused from their daily labors today to attend church, stuff themselves with turkey and quietly give thanks for the past year of peace and prosperity.