Astoria Column centennial celebrations to include a 3-in-1 daylong extravaganza
Published 10:27 am Friday, January 23, 2026
By JAY CORELLA
The Astorian
On Tuesday at an Astoria City Council work session, community members and the city council listened to a presentation by Jordan Schnitzer, president of the Friends of the Astoria Column. He was there to share plans for the 100th anniversary of the Column.
Festivities for the centennial have already kicked off with the Soaring Resolution and the January Fitness Challenge. The Soaring Resolution gives you a chance to send your new year resolutions flying from the top of the Column and the challenge is a way to get your steps in with a climb to the top — do it 20 times during the month for prizes.
Schnitzer is a Portland area developer and philanthropist and has been involved with the Column’s nonprofit organization since its inception in 1988. Through that organization, he’s taken a leading role in the preservation of the Column — and its 100-year celebration.
What is being planned?
The Friends of the Column are planning for three events to take place over the course of one day — on July 18.
“What we wanted to do conceptually was something, a big thing, for everybody that was free,” said Schnitzer.
The first event is slated to be a community celebration that will take place in downtown Astoria throughout the day. The event will be a cultural fair, said Schnitzer, celebrating the community’s diverse histories and heritages and will be centrally located at 12th and Duane streets.
“It’s like a farmers market but for culture,” said McAndrew Burns, executive director of the Clatsop County Historical Society.
On the same day, at the base of the Column, they plan to have a rededication ceremony in honor of the centennial.
The rededication will be a smaller event, according to Schnitzer, with only about 60 guests in attendance. Ellen Waterston, Oregon’s poet laureate, will be one of the guests who will recite a special poem for the occasion, he said.
But even though it will be limited in size, the ceremony will be broadcast to a screen in downtown Astoria so community members can watch.
The final event will be a gala, which Schnitzer estimates could have about 150 people in attendance.
“That would be a higher-end (event),” he said.
Schnitzer said that the Friends of the Astoria Column plan to come back to the council to present more details for the celebrations in approximately six weeks.
