Trains and ships bring educated crowds hungry for historyStanding on the edge of the Astoria Column’s parking lot taking in the view on a day when bright sun and blue skies made it feel like anything but mid-December in Astoria, Kenny Lyon of Los Angeles was taken aback.

He was in Oregon because his wife, a ballet dancer, was performing in Portland and he was looking after their infant son Nathaniel, who was cradled in Lyon’s arms.

“I was shocked,” he says. “I mean it’s a beautiful town … it’s a beautiful little place.”

Lyon decided to hit the coast on a whim. When he was in Seaside eating lunch, a waitress told him to check out the Column.

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Hear reporter Andrew Adams talk about the seriesHe added he “absolutely” would like to come to Astoria some other time.

From her gift shop at the top of Coxcomb Hill, Paula Bue watches tourists like Lyon come in and out like the tide.

During the summer, the flow is at its flood, the winter the ebb.

This summer, it was more like a tsunami swept through Astoria.

Bue says about 220,000 people came to the Column last summer. That’s about the same number of total visits during a year for the local landmark.

She says tourists come from all over … and more are coming.

“It’s significantly up,” she says.

To Bue, Astoria’s tourism increase started with the restoration of the Column, picked up momentum when the trolley started making its run along the riverfront, then took off with national press coverage.

Though she has lived most of her life in Hillsboro, Bue says she went to high school in Astoria and visited the city often.

Many times in past years, coming here broke her heart.

“Astoria was pretty depressed for two decades,” she says. “When you have new restorations new refurbishings, when you have cruise ships docked and people in town it makes it feel vibrant.”

That added vibrancy makes people want to invest in the community.

“You can just see what happened to real estate. There’s less houses for sale and they cost more,” she says.

Another transformationAstoria has often had to transform itself in its long history. Sometimes those changes have been figurative, and sometimes quite literal as when residents had to rebuild the city following two disastrous fires.

Today, it appears another period of transformation is coming to fruition. This summer saw more tourists visiting Astoria than in recent memory.

Visitor counts at Astoria’s attractions, such as the Flavel House and Columbia River Maritime Museum, swelled and tourists crowded Commercial Street visiting shops and restaurants and turned the Sunday Market into a downtown party every weekend.

Many visitors came to Astoria to see the town – not because they had stopped on U.S. Highway 30 en route to other coastal destinations. Others arrived by cruise ship and a new passenger rail service, the Lewis and Clark Explorer train.

This new popularity as a tourist destination begs a question. Has Astoria traded in its roots as a blue-collar, working town to join other cities on the North Coast that define themselves by how they attract tourists?

The answer is – yes and no.

“We still have many eggs in our basket … but the tourism egg has never been as big,” says Mayor Willis Van Dusen.

Astoria’s civic leader says tourism emerged as a method of survival for the city when the timber and fishing industries declined in the mid to late ’80s, but Van Dusen adds he still believes those traditional industries are viable. Tourism will only complement – not replace – them, he says.

That opinion is shared by many Astorians responsible for bringing the additional tourists to town and those in the travel industry who hope to profit from them coming here. It is their view that Astoria can grow in becoming a tourist destination – without sacrificing the identity it has had for much of its almost 200-year history.

Waking up to potentialThe more Bruce Conner talks about Astoria’s tourist chances, the more animated he becomes. The owner of Sundial Travel, Conner seems like a 19th-century medicine seller.

“We just have a place that people want to see,” he says. “People are spending money, you see people investing money. … You got a nice touch last summer, but you’re really going to feel it next year.”

Conner has a package of group tours. These include a Fort Stevens bike trip, kayak tours on the Skipanon, Lewis and Clark and John Day rivers, and cooking and wine tasting classes at the Oregon State University seafood lab.

While Conner says Astoria has been talking about tourism for about eight years, it wasn’t until cruise ships started to arrive that people woke up to the kind of potential the city has.

After working in the travel industry in Astoria for 22 years, Conner says he’s never seen the city so poised to reap the benefits of travelers.

Van Dusen says Astoria has found its potential as a tourist town, but not at the expense of the industries that gave Astoria its start.

Fishing and timber are still strong elements of the local community, he argues, even though they may not employ people in the same numbers they once did. Astoria still has processors on its waterfront – Fishhawk Fisheries and Bornstein Seafoods – and many of its residents work in the forestry industry.

The mayor points to the Riverwalk, which runs right through the fish processor’s backyards, past forklifts and through the pungent aromas emitting from warehouses, as something that bonds Astoria’s fishing legacy with tourism.

“I’ve never liked the word ‘quaint,'” he says, explaining that Astoria can have it both ways, preserving its heritage while attracting visitors.

The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial often is used to explain Astoria’s recent tourism appeal. But Conner and Van Dusen say that even without that, Astoria would be seeing a tourist boom. They say Astoria’s own history, revitalized downtown, art scene and cultural events, as well as the natural beauty of the Columbia River, are strong enough on their own.

“Now that Lewis and Clark is getting under way, that’s just a bonus,” Conner says.

But not all the groundwork is done. Van Dusen says the region still needs better transportation from the Portland metro area. Air service, improved rail, and a straighter, wider U.S. Highway 30 – which he calls the “goat trail to Astoria.”

With better access, Van Dusen says more tourists will come, and with them entrepreneurs who could see Astoria as a great place to move their business, not just a place to visit.

More and more people comingThe numbers tell the story of how Astoria is growing more popular. Martha Dahl, business manager for the Clatsop County Historical Society, says the Flavel House has seen its number of visitors grow consistently since 1998 (except during renovations in 1999). She said an estimated 21,000 people from almost every single state and several countries visited the house in 2003.

Jerry Ostermiller, executive director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum, said the museum saw its attendance grow from 73,641 in 1993 to 98,388 in 2003. During 2003, the museum saw a 14-percent jump in attendance when almost 7,000 more people visited the museum. This followed a multi-million dollar investment in the museum’s exhibit halls.

“The magic ingredient is broadened appeal,” Ostermiller says. “There’s something here for all ages and interests. Astoria is offering more now than it has in 30 years.”

The city hasn’t kept accurate visitor counts for the Astoria Column for more than a few years, but it is believed that 250,000 to 300,000 visit the landmark annually.

Conner said these visitors are often affluent and older than the average traveler because they are coming here specifically for Astoria’s history. Most of these tourists come from Washington, California and British Columbia.

Natalie Barns of the Oregon Tourism Commission also reports that tourists in Astoria are mainly coming from the Western states. She said the Oregon Coast is a popular destination for out-of-state tourists because of the unlimited public beach access and the region’s rugged beauty.

“Astoria has a lot of things going for it – ‘location, location, location’ still remains the big thing there,” she says.

According to visitor counts by the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce at its welcome center in Astoria, most visitors came from around Oregon – 7,659 of them (a 45 percent increase over last year). Washingtonians came in a close second at 7,247, a 28-percent increase, and Californians were third at 3,057.

Overall, the center saw a 30-percent increase in visitors, and Roger Rocka, the center’s executive director, says that signals more long-distance travelers are coming to Astoria. He said tourism has been increasing, but the extra activity hasn’t necessarily showed at the welcome center because in the past few years many tourists coming to Astoria were already fairly well acquainted with the area. That followed a national trend that saw people taking vacations closer to home because of fears following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Sowing the seedsSo what has caused this trend? Hundreds of tourists didn’t just show up one sunny day in August. The city’s increased popularity can be traced to efforts on several fronts.

City Planner Rosemary Johnson said one of the first significant steps was the city building the transient moorage at the foot of 17th Street. That brought in river tour boats and gave the city its first large influx of visitors.

“Once people came here there’s a tendency for repeat visits,” she says. The tour boats themselves didn’t spur much development, because passengers sleep and eat on the boats. But when those same people were induced to come back to Astoria – just for the city itself and not a river trip – they fueled demand at restaurants and hotels.

With more and more return visits, Johnson said Astoria began getting wider media exposure.

“We started getting national coverage, quite a few magazine articles, different brochures, that put us in the national eye and I think people started seeing more and more the beauty we have here,” she says.

That, combined with a revitalization drive downtown and the efforts by the city’s former development director Paul Benoit in the 1990s, really began to set the stage for Astoria’s tourism growth.

“It took a lot of hard work to convince people you need to put money into things like street trees and the Riverwalk,” she says. “You have to spend money to get them here.”

Johnson points to other projects, such as the renovation of the Liberty Theater and the Hotel Elliott, as important symbols of Astoria’s growing success.

“It’s a domino effect, each piece is a building block upon the next one,” she says.

Other towns have bumper cars and cotton candy, but Johnson said people in Astoria realized they could draw on the town’s history, growing cultural attractions and sense of community to bring in tourists.

She says tourism can continue to provide a stimulus for other development.

“It could be our future, but we don’t want to hang everything on tourism,” she says. “Tourism could be the main industry supporting others.”

Ships and trainsIronically, the stalwarts of Astoria’s old industrial days – trains and oceangoing ships – were responsible for one of its biggest years in tourism.

Trains and ships used to haul out salmon and timber from Astoria. Now oceangoing cruise ships and the Lewis and Clark Explorer train haul in tourists.

Talk about tourism lately invariably focuses on the cruise ships. Astoria’s port had its busiest summer in the cruise industry with ships stopping almost every week.

Bill Cook, the port’s deputy director, says the cruise industry is lucrative for the community. It creates jobs at the port, as well as travel businesses, and means customers lining up at Astoria shops.

He says the port wants to build on its success and expects a busy 2004, and possibly more ships will stop in summer 2005.

Conner, who works closely with others in the industry, says he expects there could be as many as 7,500 people coming to the North Coast next summer just from cruise ships.

“These are different ships; the city’s never seen them before and they’re the latest and the greatest,” he says.

While Cook says the port is enjoying success with cruise ships, that’s just one of its lines of business. He says the port is also promoting its facilities for cold storage of fish products, as well as the possibilities for ship building and ship repair.

He says tourism is definitely something that will help Astoria stay economically successful. He says he sees that in how the revitalization of the downtown core with the Liberty Theater, plus more shops that draw on a growing art and culture scene in Astoria, could prolong the city’s tourist season.

“Is our season 12 months? It could be,” he says.

After folks mention the cruise ships, they often talk about “the train.”

The Oregon Tourism Commission’s report on the 2003 tourist season notes the North Coast was one of the few areas in the state to see a significant growth in tourism. That’s largely because the Lewis and Clark Explorer train brought 18,000 people to Astoria.

State Rep. Betsy Johnson fought tooth and nail for the funding, even soliciting donations from private individuals. She says she did it for a few reasons including a sentimental one of bringing a train back to Astoria.

But, she adds, she also realized the tremendous marketing potential of a train route that would take folks along the Columbia River estuary highlighting much of the region’s natural beauty as Lewis and Clark saw it when they made their historic trek.

And, she says, she’s a strong proponent of alternative forms of transportation and wanted to get something in place for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial to try and avoid the traffic nightmares that came with the battleship U.S.S Missouri’s 1998 visit.

She says Astoria is “a secret that’s beginning to get out” and has the potential to grow into a top-notch tourist destination. A part of that is what she calls Astoria’s “sense of place.” Instead of just a generic tourist spot, Johnson says Astoria has the chance to offer something unique.

“I don’t see this stark ‘We’ve traded our heritage for tourists,'” she said. “You don’t have to turn into a Disneyland.”

A ‘market’ for touristsJoyce Compere came to Astoria with her husband, John, about eight years ago, though she first saw the city in 1985. Compere organizes the city’s Sunday Market and serves as a city councilor.

She says she is ashamed to admit it but back in the mid-80s “Astoria could have tossed a coin and gone either way.”

The city could have turned a blind eye to its potential and slowly allowed itself to close up – instead of seizing on what makes it unique.

“We are not just old, we are historic,” she says. “There is a huge difference. There have been people with vision that have kept pounding.”

She says her husband John, a clinical psychologist, has surveyed visitors to the Sunday market and found it attracts a large number of locals in the morning and about 60 percent of out-of-area visitors in the afternoons. She believes that’s a testament to Astoria’s growing popularity as a destination.

Compere also believes Astoria was able to discover its popularity by not giving up on itself and drawing on local residents’ sense of what a Finnish neighbor calls “sisu.”

“Its intestinal fortitude and there’s a lot of it in this community, and you don’t need to be Finnish to have it,” she says.

Compere says the future of Astoria may not be defined by tourism, but it will become a stronger part the town in coming decades.

“I really see wonderful things on the horizon for development,” she says. “I don’t think we’re just tourism, but I think that will be our niche. I think that’s why other things are going to come.”