10 years ago this week 2004

The chance to appear in a Hollywood movie, even if just in the background, lured hundreds of people to Astoria Middle School Saturday for a casting call for the film The Ring II, the sequel to the hit horror movie set to begin filming in Astoria next month.

After a journey of more than 4,000 miles across some of Americas most breathtaking landscapes, William Clark still found the view from Tillamook Head The grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed.

That seems pretty impressive to me, said Mark Smith, manager of Ecola State Park.

At a ceremony Saturday, the park unveiled the North Coasts newest Lewis and Clark attraction, the Clatsop Loop Trail.

Astorias last major piece of industrial-zoned property, a 12-acre site on the east end of town between 38th Street and 41st Street and Lief Erickson Drive and the railroad tracks along the riverfront, is rapidly being transformed by local developers Randy Stemper and Harry Henke. The trees and blackberry bushes that once covered the site have been replaced by level, graded lots, and utilities are being installed as Stemper turns the Lief Erickson side of the property into Astoria Business Park.

Fort Clatsops prominence in the Lewis and Clark story makes it an obvious choice to participate in Fridays nationwide unveiling of the new postage stamps commemorating the Corps of Discoverys journey.

But theres also a bit of postal history at the site of the explorers winter encampment.

An early Clatsop County settler who built a house next to the old fort site ran the local post office out of his home, a tidbit of history provided by Fort Clatsop National Memorial.

Nowadays, the parks replica fort and visitor center sit nestled in a thick forest. But during the second half of the 19th century the area was the site of, at various times, a fruit orchard, a lumber mill, brick-and charcoal-making operations, a steamboat landing and, in the 1870s, a post office operated by settler William Shane Smith.

50 years ago 1964

Bunker Hill company announced here Tuesday morning it is abandoning plans to mine the Clatsop Beach sands for iron ore and surrendering its mining leases to the state and county governments.

The sands do not contain enough iron to justify commercial operations, company officials told local citizens at a breakfast meeting.

We had high hopes as result of the richness of the surface sands, Robert Brown, attorney for the firm, said, But our test drilling showed results that were anything but good.The iron just wasnt there, quantitatively.

The spring salmon catch so far this year is running about 50 percent of last year, according to several fishing industry sources.

Reasons given for the relatively small catch were low depth of the river and pollution. Present depth of the river is abnormally low for this time of year.

Pickets of the Oregon District Council of Building Laborers halted work on Desdemona Sands viaduct contract of the Astoria Interstate bridge Monday morning.

It was the second major construction job here to be halted by the spreading statewide strike of building laborers. Pickets had showed up Thursday to halt the Smith Point bridge contract of Peter Kiewit Sons company. That job remained idle Monday.

75 years ago 1939

Eli Jaasko and Charles Kato, Astoria gillnetters, barely escaped death before noon Monday when a steam schooner rammed and sank their boat in the Columbia River below Desdemona light, throwing the two men into the water.

As the steamer swung to a stop to see if the men were injured, another gilnetter, Jens Aslaksen, of Astoria, picked them out of the cold Columbia.

The two fishermen were unable to identify the steam schooner which rammed them, but the Whitney Olson was believed to in the vicinity at the time, bound from Warrenton to Knappton.

The fishermen said they had expected the steamer, which they saw coming down the ship channel to continue on toward sea, but that instead it swung out of the channel, evidently intending to head northward to the Knappton channel.

Adele Anderson, 13-year-old Seaside soprano prodigy, will sing before Crown Prince Olav of Norway at a banquet in the Multnomah Hotels grand ballroom May 20, it was learned here today. She will be accompanied by Mrs. Loma Ten Eyke of Astoria.

The Seaside youngster is being coached in voice by Rose Coursen-Reed and her musical education is being supervised by Astorias Kiwanis club. She has a rich, full voice, slightly on the contralto side, which is considered extremely mature for a youngster of her age. She is the toast of music lovers in the lower Columbia communities and her progress is eyed with considerable anticipation by those appreciating possibilities in talent, discovered in early years.

After May 15, the bounty paid for seals killed in the Columbia River will be $10 instead of $5, according to an order drawn Thursday by the state fish commission. This is in conformance with permissive legislation passed by the last legislature and effective May 15.

The seal bounty fund is one provided by the fishermen of the Columbia themselves through a self imposed tax. The fund has accumulated during the past few years until it now has in it a balance of approximately $9000.