Bringing the past to life: The railroad arrives
Published 8:13 am Monday, February 23, 2026
Color makes it possible to imagine the excitement surrounding arrival of the Astoria and Columbia River Railroad train more than a century ago. The authoritative Oregon Encyclopedia (https://tinyurl.com/ACRR-article) summarizes how, after several false starts, the line connecting Astoria with the U.S. interior rail network was completed in May 1898.
Initially paying its way by transporting tourists between Portland and the Seaside-area resorts, the ACRR became a mainstay of our timber and salmon industries, carrying freight from our coast to the rest of the nation.
“In the end, it was the timber industry that benefited the most from the A&CR, as the railroad now accessed the forests of the Oregon Coast Range that, according to the Oregonian, had been “shut off by an impenetrable wall” of rugged mountains and twisting river valleys.” By 1910, Astoria had 15,000 people, and its lumber mills were running day and night, producing more than 263 million board feet of lumber a year, almost all of it for export,” the encyclopedia reports.
The old railroad right-of-way and infrastructure now form the backbone of the popular Astoria Riverwalk.
