10 years ago this week — 2014

The high score on Donkey Kong stands near 1.14 million, according to high-score tracker Twin Galaxies. Now Astorians won’t have to travel far to beat it on an original 1981 machine.

On July 1, local hotelier Brad Smithart, owner of Astoria Riverwalk Inn, will open the Arc Arcade, a retro gaming center on Commercial Street.

The arcade features at least 85 arcade and pinball machines, laptop gaming and console rentals, about 17 flat screens and an open-source game design center.

The weather cooperated Sunday for the inaugural Run on the Riverwalk.

Astoria Parks and Recreation Department Director Angela Cosby said there were 164 runners for the half-marathon and 5K races.

“We’re pretty pleased,” Cosby said, noting that the overcast skies meant that “not everyone had to wear sunglasses.”

About 35 volunteers helped out along the course and Buoy Beer Co. provided food after the event.

The Oregon Military Department says it plans to test a wave energy converter this summer off of Camp Rilea in Warrenton.

The Oregon National Guard and a wave energy partner expect to place a 30-by-7-foot device on the ocean floor about a mile offshore.

Mike Morrow, with M3 Wave in Salem, said the testing device would sit about 42 feet below the surface and be placed either in mid-August or September depending on the availability of vessels for deployment.

“We’re taking baby steps,” Morrow said. “This is a unique nearshore site.”

Clatsop County Manager Scott Somers attended the Port of Astoria Commission meeting Tuesday to ask for its support in the county’s and the city of Warrenton’s effort to set aside land in the North Coast Business Park, at Ensign Lane and U.S. Highway 101, for industrial employers.

“I think we have to give it a good college try,” Somers said, adding that the designation of parts of the business park as Regionally Significant Industrial Area eases permits, adds more support from the state in job creation and protects from zoning conflicts.

ARCH CAPE — A cast and crew spent this past week working on what may be the next television show filmed in Oregon.

The rugged coastline near Arch Cape was the perfect location for Road’s End Films’ newest project about a group of Norsemen — more commonly known as Vikings — landing in the New World and interacting with Native Americans.

The producers looked at various Oregon State Parks locations on the coast, but settled on Hug Point and Oswald West State Park for a short film called “Runestone,” which is set in the ninth century.

50 years ago — 1974

The last U.S. Coast Guardsman to leave Tillamook Rock Lighthouse in September 1957 was Mike O’Donnell. After hoisting the other lighthouse keepers and equipment to a waiting boat using the wooden boom, he secured it and jumped from the rock into a well-padded boat.

For 17 years, the hand-hewn stone lighthouse standing 133 feet above the constantly swirling sea around its rock base had been unoccupied, slowly deteriorating scant miles off Tillamook Head south of Seaside. Only the seagulls, cormorants and penguin-like murres and an occasional sea lion family called the place home.

But man has returned to claim the rock.

New Jersey General Electric Corp. engineer executive George Hupman purchased the 1-acre, bird-stained rock and lighthouse last year for a summer retreat from a Nevada concern which had owned it since 1959, but did little with the lighthouse except spark rumors of an offshore gambling casino.

SEASIDE — A six-member squad entered in seven events in the Class AA state track and field competition Friday and Saturday at Eugene brought home the proverbial bacon.

Seaside is known as the Seagulls and they literally soared to the upset victory, their first-ever state track championship, bagging old Seaside High School records in the process.

In all, records fell in the 100-yard and 220-yard dashes by senior superstar sprinter Rod Pearsall (voted the most outstanding at state) and in the 440 relay by Joe Soulagnet, Don Fish, Gary Williams and Pearsall.

SEASIDE — “We got the gas,” said a crewman from the Northwest Natural Gas Co. raft as it posted the fastest time in Sunday’s second annual World Championship Tidewater Raft Race in Seaside.

The Astoria crew, in a sleek, blue craft which resembled more of a long surfboat with oars than a Tom Sawyer raft, finished the 2-mile race on the Necanicum River in 27 minutes.

But then most of the 37 rafts in the race were far from a bunch of logs tied together. There were catamarans, trimarans, sidewheelers and large and small boxes made out of inner tubes, mild cartons, styrofoam and wood.

All of them floated except one “Old Aluminum Sides,” from the El Rancho Tavern in Seaside, which fell apart when it hit the water. Later, it managed to float, though it didn’t participate in the race.

There is only a 100 to 1 chance the U.S. Navy would change its mind and decide to put a Trident nuclear submarine base at Tongue Point instead of near Bremerton, Washington, an aide to U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield, an Oregon Republican, said today.

Hatfield’s aide said, “It isn’t in the cards for Astoria, so there is no use encouraging hope.”

Astoria Mayor Harry Steinbock asked Oregon’s congressional delegation last week to see if the Navy would consider putting the Trident base here after Washington Gov. Dan Evans expressed concern about the impact of the installation.

The base is expected to draw some 25,000 persons to the Bremerton area, which is across Puget Sound from Seattle, and Evans said the cost of services that would be needed will outweigh economic benefits several times.

75 years ago — 1949

The menace of Japanese World War II floating mines along the Northwest coast of the United States is far from over. Mines can be expected to show up from time to time for 10 years to come.

This is the opinion of Lt. I.G. Nelson, 13th naval district bomb disposal officer, who was in Astoria Wednesday from Seattle to supervise removal of a 10-inch shell dug up near the port docks.

Lt. Nelson said he has had only three mines to destroy since he took over the bomb disposal duty from Lt. Don Winslow last August.

Lt. Winslow, in contrast, had 58 of the deadly globes to destroy during his two-year tour of duty.

However, Lt. Nelson said, the main reason his own task has been so light is not lack of mines in the ocean, but better weather. It takes good, strong southwesterly weather to litter the beach and coastal water with mines, he said.

The Columbia River fishing industry has not yet made definite plans for appearance before the Federal Power Commission to oppose the issuance of a permit for Pelton Dam, but industry spokesmen said Tuesday that such an appearance will most probably be made.

The cooperation of Sen. Guy Cordon has been promised in obtaining financial assistance for the U.S. Navy for the Astoria School District, City School Supt. James Burgess reported at Tuesday night’s school board meeting.

Burgess, who has been interviewing Navy officers at Tongue Point relative to obtaining this aid, said Sen. Cordon had written him, giving assurance that assistance will be provided in obtaining the funds.

The superintendent told school directors Tuesday night that during the past school year, 116 children of Tongue Point naval personnel were enrolled in city schools.

The mysterious bone in the window of the Astorian-Budget office has sent John Rannels, 11-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. D. N. Rannells, of Florence Avenue, on a hunt through encyclopedias in search of clues to the bone’s identity.

John, who will be in the sixth grade at Star of the Sea school next year, brought three volumes of the Book of Knowledge to the newspaper office this week.

He had marked several passages describing prehistoric monsters once common in this area.

One of John’s selections as a possible solution for the bone’s identity was the shin bone of a mastodon.

This same suggestion was made this week by a local adult, George L. Cobban, of Jerome Avenue.

John also suggested several species common in the Eocene era of the tertiary epoch, one of the earliest eras in mammalian geology.

John was unable to offer an opinion as to whether the bone on display at the newspaper office was a real fossil. Unless it can be proven that it is a fossil, the bone probably will prove to be some part of a whale.

The boy added, however, that discovery of the bone has sent him into geologic experiments. He has begun digging in the side yard of his home to see if any other big bones can be found.