Ben Snipes, Northwest Cattle King - Astoria Daytrips



Day Trip 1: Get Your Bearings

G

ood gems have many facets: scenic charm, historical significance, and nostalgic gentility. Astoria has it all.

Let’s start at the top of town.

Go even higher.

The 125 ft high Astoria Column is the region’s most iconic landmark and stands at the peak of Coxcomb Hill, at an elevation of 595 feet.

Opened in 1926 in stands above Astoria for a magnificent vista. [pic]

Climb the 166 steps to the platform at the top and take in the 360 degree view of the area.

Your view will encompass everything, including the 4.1 mile Megler Bridge that crosses the Columbia River (to the North). The rich Young’s River farm delta and Saddle Mountain, (Clatsop County’s highest peak) are towards the south.

Mountains include Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens (to the Northeast).

The column is patterned after the Trajan’s column in Rome, and the exterior is designed with a spiral mural depicting northwest historic events within the sight of the column.

If you prefer a woodsy walk, you can get there on a trail taking off at the Clatsop County Community College parking lot. Another nature trail is at Centennial Park.

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Centennial Park was called that to honor Astoria on its 100th year in 1911. They had a month long celebration culminating in a pageant “The Bridge of the Gods” performed at an amphitheater on the south slope of the hill.

Now, you need to rest. Take a bus ride through the residential part of town and out to Tongue Point, home of the Federal Job Corp Center and a Coast Guard buoy tender station. For years following World War II, the bay was an anchorage for ships built by Rosy the Riveter at the Portland shipyards.

Time to take another walk. In Boston, you walk the Freedom Trail. In Astoria, you walk Vera Gault’s walking tour of Victorian homes.

Astoria is rich with these treasures. The gentility of early days is revealed in the architecture. The queen of them all is the magnificent George C. Flavel mansion. It was built in 1883 and has been faithfully restored and offered to the pubic as a museum.

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Antique lovers have traveled across the country to see this one. It is open for self guided tours, but before you tour the mansion, it helps to begin at the carriage house, which offers a video of the history of the house and family of Flavels. Captain Flavel was the first licensed bar pilot, and the fourth floor cupola was his look-out to keep an eye on his fleet.

If you are interested in even earlier history, get over to Exchange street between 14th and 15th. AHA, there you are at the very spot where John Jacob Astor’s Pacifier Fur Company established the very first permanent outpost west of the Rocky Mountains in 1811!

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Astoria celebrated its bicentennial on April 5, 2011. John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Trading party, established the city of Astoria as the first permanent U.S. settlement west of the Rocky Mountains in April, 1811.

Now, you know Astoria’s worthiness as a historic treasure. You can also be right where the first Post Office west of the Rockies was at 15th. President James Polk appointed John Shiveley as postmaster in 1847. Out on highway 30 heading for Portland, there is a replica of the first Court House.

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But don’t leave Astoria until you spend a few hours inside the Maritime Museum. This is the best one on the West Coast—no doubt about that. Rolf Klep gets the credit for it, and it keeps on getting better and better.

The latest attraction is a modern 3-D movie theater. They showed a film on sharks as an opener. You can actually go aboard a ship there, and you will learn something whether you intent to or not!

Go to Astoria. It is beautiful, and a little history is bound to rub off on you.

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By Dorothy Churchill

Astoria Day Trips

Discover Astoria

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