1975 — Auto dealer Ernie Garcia, a supporter of AMAX’s plan to locate an aluminum plant near here, put up this sign, which was promptly defaced.

10 years ago this week — 2015

SEASIDE — More than 500 people watched as four local young women took home pageant titles at the Miss Clatsop County Scholarship Program Saturday at the Seaside Civic and Convention Center, advancing them to the state competition in June.

Alexis Mather, of Astoria, swept the awards in interview, fitness, talent and eveningwear on her way to being named Miss Clatsop County 2015, as well as receiving the Service Above Self Award.

SEASIDE — Take the last second of the first, second and third quarters, and that was the difference in the game Friday night at Seaside, where the Gulls scored a 55-46 Cowapa League boys basketball win over Astoria.

As time expired in the first quarter, Seaside’s Hunter Thompson hit a shot from just inside the half-court line and also drew a foul to complete a four-point play.

Seaside teammate Jackson Januik closed the second period with a 3-pointer at the buzzer and capped the third quarter with three straight free throws after he was fouled on a 3-point attempt with one second left.

Three seconds, 10 points, and a nine-point Seaside win.

The old White Star Cannery boiler, a stark and solitary reminder of Astoria’s past, may get historic designation.

The city’s Historic Landmarks Commission has filed an application to designate the property with the old boiler, a pile field and ballast rocks in the Columbia River west of Second Street as historic.

City planners are also exploring development restrictions over the river near the old boiler as part of the Bridge Vista phase of the Riverfront Vision Plan that would keep building heights to the top of the riverbank.

Taken together, the historic designation and building height limit would essentially shield the property from development and preserve an unobstructed view of the river, the shipping lane and the Astoria Bridge.

After shimmying him onto a blanket and creating a makeshift stretcher with a broomstick and dowel rod for handles, Marcus Giles’ classmates evacuated their injured classmate out of Warrenton High School’s cafeteria.

Behind the Brick House at Astoria High School, students practiced extinguishing propane fires in two-man teams.

In Astoria, Warrenton and Seaside, teens are being trained as Community Emergency Response Teams members, ready to help staff at their high schools respond when disaster strikes.

Astoria Police closed the Astoria Column Sunday morning to investigate a suspicious item, appearing to be a potential pipe bomb.

By noon, the Oregon State Police Explosives Unit removed the item and deemed it not likely explosive.

50 years ago — 1975

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pennsylvania — Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil has failed to see his shadow for the first Groundhog Day in 15 years, and his devotees say that means spring is coming soon.

A capacity crowd jammed into the Astoria Library Flag Room Sunday to listen to a one-hour banjo concert performed by Yasu Kobayashi and his accompanist, John Hannum.

The occasion for the concert was the library’s second-year celebration of the birth of Ranald MacDonald, who gained fame by becoming Japan’s first English teacher. In addition to banjo, Kobayashi also plays guitar and mandolin.

The fate of the Union Oil Co. bulk storage plant in Astoria is in doubt again because of water pollution requirements of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The bulk plant is operating on a month-to-month basis while awaiting action by company officials regarding the department’s requirement that stormwater runoff be treated to limit discharge of oil into the Columbia River.

KNAPPA — Controversy continues between residents of this rural community east of Astoria and a local holly grower whose crop has been damaged by a herd of Roosevelt elk.

Residents are upset that two more elk groups have been located on or adjacent to the holly grower’s property in an attempt to catch the animals and transport them out of the county.

The holly grower, Archie Erickson, has filed numerous complaints with the Oregon Wildlife Commission because of the damage the elk herd has done to his crop.

Port of Astoria Commissioner Martin West warned the Environmental Quality Commission its credibility and effectiveness could be reduced “to the extent you embrace minority social causes in the name of the environment.”

West said in a letter that he opposed the agency’s declared intention to designate the Youngs Bay-Warrenton area as a “special problem area” for aluminum plant emissions.

That designation could block construction of the AMAX aluminum plant at Warrenton.

He advised the agency’s members to “submit any scientific data that troubles you” to the Oregon State University Marine Science Department.

Thirty-six telephone operators will be transferred from Astoria to Portland in late 1976 as a result of a move by Pacific Northwest Bell to further automate its long-distance phone services.

The transfer will reduce the current Pacific Northwest Bell workforce of 82 persons in Clatsop County by almost 44%.

SEASIDE — The state Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t make environmental policy decisions, Deputy Director Ron Myles said in defending his agency before a large group of AMAX supporters here Tuesday.

He explained that by state law the department exists to serve and enforce the environmental policy decisions made by the five, governor-appointed members of the Environmental Quality Commission.

Myles’s message was clear throughout this talk at the Seaside Chamber of Commerce luncheon: don’t blame his agency for decisions made by the Environmental Quality Commission regarding the proposed AMAX aluminum plant.

75 years ago — 1950

Ice blocked the livelihood of thousands of Columbia River fishermen as February arrived. The salmon and steelhead season had opened Jan. 29 but a few boats which went out returned with frozen nets or with nets which had not been laid out at all.

Smelt boats were immobilized, too, throughout the river’s shores from Clifton and Puget Island to Rainier. Edna Bradley, Clatskanie, secretary of the smelt fishermen’s union, said Wednesday.

“The smelt are there, but too deep to be reached. They go down because of the cold. No one is trying for them anyway. Nets are cut by the ice as soon as laid out, and what’s left of them freezes.”

Unemployment has reached a new high in the Clatsop area partly because of the weather.

An estimated 3,600 of the county’s residents were jobless Tuesday, Guy Barker, manager of the local state employment office, said in announcing the new record. An average of 2,535 drew compensation during each week in January.

Included in the 3,600 are approximately 1,000 men temporarily out of work because logging and sawmill activities have been seriously hampered by continued snow, cold and impassable road conditions.

Intensive feeding operations for wildlife and birds are being conducted by state police and county sportsmen’s groups as continued cold weather in the county made feed conditions more difficult, state police officers reported today.

Police said numbers of ducks could be found on the river’s edge and on various lakes and grain was being hauled to them to help out the food situation.

At Sunset Lake, residents reported large numbers of ducks and some swans were milling around on the lake looking for food.

WARRENTON — Warrenton fire chief Larry Lenhard was inspecting his house today to determine the amount of damage that resulted from a fire underneath his residence Wednesday afternoon.

The fire department was called at 4:15 p.m. yesterday after a butane torch used by workmen under the house to thaw out frozen pipes had apparently ignited fuel oil on the ground under the residence, Lenhard said.

If the salmon and tuna don’t come back some year, Astoria can still be the fishing center of the state and “one of the great fish cities of the nation.”

Bottom fish, which now are largely converted to fertilizer, sold as mink food, or discarded, may be the saving factor in years to come.

That is the solution and the program proposed by Edward W. Harvey, director of Seafoods Laboratory. An agency of the Oregon State College extension service, Seafoods Laboratory conducts research which directly or indirectly helps members of the Oregon fishing industry to operate more efficiently and to plan better for the years ahead.