Astoria, Oregon

“ By his energy and industry he grew to be a leading figure in the commercial life of the city, where he died on March 29, 1848, leaving a large fortune, part of which founded the Astor Library. The bibliography of John Jacob Astor's relations with Oregon is unusually large. Washington Irving's Astoria strays from the fields of historical accuracy, but gives a good general account of Astor's enterprise. The first chapters of Scott's History of the Oregon Country treat of the founding of Astoria quite fully, and include a large number of references invaluable to those interested in the matter. ”

“ John Jacob Astor, the founder of Astoria, Oregon was the greatest fur trader, and one of the greatest and best business men America had ever produced. Measured np by all the standards that go to make a really great and good man in the ordinary citizen's life in the world of business, Astor stands at the head of th (> long line of self-made men for sagacity, energy, comprehension, integrity and patriotism. Let every American school boy read his record with deep thought and profound respect. Astor was born in the village of Waldorf near Heide) - berg, Germany. ”

“ Every newspaperman has been thrilled by the record of Astoria’s fire and its aftermath of heroic endeavor. An emergency thrust itself upon us on the morning of December 8. While flames were devouring building after building and gradually swelled a fire into a conflagration, Portland slept peacefully beneath a soft blanket of new-fallen snow. My telephone rang long before day-break and the news was given to me. My first act was to wire our correspondent at Astoria, asking him to call by long distance telephone with all available facts. ”

“ During the two years, from 1874 to 1876, the population of the town nearly doubled and many new buildings, consisting of canneries, warehouses, and dwellings, were erected. There was much money in circulation as every one had money and the fishermen were prodigal with theirs. Small change was seldom used, the quarter being the smallest coin in general use. This was the period of Astoria's greatest growth. From a small shipping station in the sixties it had grown to be a town of about two thousand people, controlling the most important industry on the lower Columbia and holding a large trade. ”

“ This is substantially the story of Astoria's settlement and growth, both in wealth and population. It remains now to trace the influence of its main industry, salmon packing, in determining its social conditions. In Astoria foreigners and native born of foreign parentage form the great majority of inhabitants. Representatives from almost every part of the world live in Astoria, the principal nationalities, however, being Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and Finns. The Finns form a greater part of our population than any other nationality. ”

“ Like the Portland citizens of 1870, the Astoria citizens were determined and put forth tremendous effort.
The Astoria project took many forms and suffered many vicissitudes; only brief outline can be given here; probably such outline is better because of wearisome detail otherwise. Oregon's biggest railroad men considered the project—Joseph Gaston, Ben Holladay, Henry Villard, C. P. Huntington, Wm. Reid. It may aid the memory to divide the promotion period into two parts—the one leading up to 1887, when Astoria adopted the self-help or bonus plan ”

“ Astoria at the present day is a cosmopolitan city of about ten thousand inhabitants, composed largely of foreigners. As in earlier times fishing is the main industry, though the rapidly growing lumber industry bids fair soon to surpass it in importance. ”

“ The population is about 5,500, except in the fishing season, when it is temporarily at least two thousand more. Resources Or. and Wash., 1882, 213; Comp. X. Census, 367. Astoria, the county seat, was founded in 1811 by the Pacific Fur Company, and named after John Jacob Astor, the head of that company. It passed through various changes before being incorporated by the Oregon legislature January 18, 1856. Its situation, just within the estuary of the Columbia, has been held to be sufficient reason for regarding this as the natural and proper place for the chief commercial town of Oregon. ”

“ If they did not stop at Astoria, they would sail on up the river until they reached the outlet of the Willamette valley. And every man of much prominence was busily engaged in trying to find the favored spot. It was not even a question of buying the townsite. The whole country was open to location. The land was free. No one knew whether it would be English or American. ”

“ The situation of Astoria, in point of beauty, is certainly a very fine one. The neck of land occupied by the town, is made a peninsula by Young's Bay on one side and the Columbia River on the other, and points to the north-west. A small cove makes in at the east side of the neck, just back of which the ground rises much more gently and smoothly than it does a little farther toward the sea. ”

“ The American settlements in Oregon thus far lacked the first essential to the planting even of the germs of a state. In no one of them was there so much as one American home, nor were there the elements of one. An American white woman had not yet set foot on Oregon soil, nor any woman, save the native and her offspring. It was now more than a score of years since that first settlement at Astoria, but Oregon still waited the coming of that institution that lies at the foundation of every American state, the American family. ”

“ Ships now began to sail for Astoria, and the trading-post flourished in the beautiful climate and amid the majestic scenery. But the English claimed the country. In June, 1812, war broke out with England, and Astoria became threatened with capture by the English. It was decided by Astor's agent to abandon the post; but Astoria had taught the United States the value of Oregon.
The Oregon trail from St. Louis, by the way of the great rivers, the Missouri, the Yellowstone, and the Columbia, followed the fall of Astoria, and began the highway of emigration to the Pacific coast and to Asia. ”

“ But, sir, if the pilgrims of the Atlantic coast finally became examples to the world in all that exalts our race, may we not hope that the pilgrims of the Pacific coast may yet become worthy of our esteem?
Nearly one-quarter of a century ago, in my boyhood, I studied the adventures of those men, who founded upon the western shore of the American continent what are now the cities of Oregon and Astoria. These men, who were then in the vigor of their lives, are now old men gray-haired and trembling with age. Their work of life is nearly completed ”

“ That, too, had been re-christened—the Hallet’s Cove of the mariner being converted into Astoria—not that bloody-minded place at the mouth of the Oregon, which has come so near bringing us to blows with our “ancestors in England,” as the worthy denizens of that quarter choose to consider themselves still, if one can judge by their language. This Astoria was a very different place, and is one of the many suburban villages that are shooting up, like mushrooms, in a night, around the great Commercial Emporium. ”

“ The municipality owns the waterworks. Next to Astoria, Oregon City is the oldest settlement in the state. In 1829 Dr John McLoughlin (1784–1857) , chief agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company, established a claim to the water-power at the Falls of the Willamette and to land where Oregon City now stands, and began the erection of a mill and several houses. After 1840, in which year McLoughlin laid out a town here and named it Oregon City, a Methodist Mission disputed his claim. He aided many destitute American immigrants, left the service of the company, and removed to Oregon City. ”

“ Astoria thus lost a rich opportunity in the Nehalem country. This route undoubtedly would have brought larger advantages to that city than the Columbia River route did later ; besides, the river route probably would have been built soon afterward, thus affording two railroads and the opening of much tribu- tary country. This loss will always be a source of regret; it was unnecessary; the railroad was Astoria's, but for the approval of a contract which Huntington had signed and to the terms of which Astoria had agreed. And there was no man so able to build the road as he. ”

“ Trade with the surrounding country has increased very rapidly during the last few years, but Astoria has been but little benefited by the increased export trade from the Columbia as most of the cargoes are shipped direct from Portland. During the ninety-two years of its existence Astoria has grown from a small fur-trading station to the second city in size in the State. While its growth has been apparently slow, it has kept pace with the development of Oregon and the Northwest as a whole. ”

“ The people of Astoria, knowing from repeated failures that they must help themselves, offered a land prize, and enlarged the prize as one would-be builder succeeded another, until finally A. B. Hammond appeared, for whom the land bounty was swelled to a value though problematical and speculative moderately estimated at between $500,000 and $1,000,000. The only other sacrifice that has ever equaled this in our commonwealth was probably the $100,000 gift from Portland citizens to Ben Holladay in 1870, for the "West Side" railroad—a tremendous public achievement for the time. ”

“ In 1890 the city had a population of six thousand one hundred and eighty-four, a very great increase over the 146 census returns of ten years before. Two years before this the Astoria and South Coast Railroad was started and the road built from Sea Side to the middle of Young's Bay, a distance of about fifteen miles. Though this road did not enter the city for several years its building had a marked effect on Astoria. Prices for city property increased very rapidly, and during the years 1889 and 1890 a real estate boom was in progress. ”

“ For several years past the society has had merely a nominal existence, but recently a movement has been started to reorganize the society, and to carry out the purposes for which it was founded, especially in the way of collecting local history.
The Astorian, the successor to Astoria's first newspaper, The Marine Gazette, published during the sixties, was first published in 1873, and has been issued continuously since that time. Its influence in the upbuilding of the town can not be estimated. ”

“ He left Missouri for Oregon April 4, 1844, arriving in Oregon City in December. Late in 1845 he paid $2,000 for a half interest in a donation claim at Fort George, now Astoria's site. The next spring, with David Ingalls, he settled there with his family, the first white family to settle in the place. He built the first house there. In 1847 he packed salmon. Visiting California in 1848, he returned in 1849 and engaged in the lumber trade. In 1850 he built a second house ”

“ The agents of Astor were beforehand. They had built their fort, mounted their cannon and run up the stars and stripes. The country and its great river was secured for the United States for all time, with the added inestimable value of a foothold on the great Pacific ocean. The services of these valiant Americans were worth more to the nation than that of a thousand President James K. Polks.
A more extended notice of the building of this Astoria fort will be given in connection with the chapter on fur companies. ”

“ Now at last Astoria citizens resolved to do for themselves; they had leaned on Holladay and Villard and got unfulfilled promises. Portland was the meeting point of the transcon- tinental Northern Pacific and Union Pacific and the ocean- going ships of the Columbia River since 1883-4; now (1887) the Astoria men made up their minds they would bring that meeting point nearer the sea to Astoria in their view, the logical place.
They could not build the 100-mile railroad themselves ”

“ Astoria.—Astoria journalism goes back to August 1864, when James Newton Gale, recently from Eugene, Salem, and Portland, where he had edited papers (as told in the appropriate spots of this work) , started the old Marine Gazette. Gale, as George H. Himes and Airs. A. C. Barette of Eugene, Gale's daughter, recall, was in vited to Astoria by a group of promoters. His wife, sister of H. R. Kincaid, Eugene publisher, did not like Astoria, and he moved on to Puget Sound within a year, becoming a pioneer publisher in the new territory of Washington. ”

“ It is the only county that has had or could have a "Centennial" celebration of its founding and exis- tence as an American community; and it is the only place where British guns were trained to fire on American interests in Oregon. Its chief city, Astoria, is the outpost and sentinel holding the keys to the gate, to protect the name, fame and vast interests of Oregon and the great Columbia river valley. ”

“ But next month Astoria's drooping spirits were revived by J. C. Stanton and J. S. Smith, who came to Astoria, offering to build two railroads both the Nehalem and the Goble routes for a subsidy of 3,000 acres of land and forty-foot right of way through the river front of Astoria. These hopeful visitors had already formed a construction company in New York to do the job, capital $1,000,000. ”

“ In the course of a year or two, it was be- lieved their interest would be promoted by cultivating and securing the friendship and confidence of the tribes inhabiting the waters of that great river; to which end, the town of Astoria was maintained by about thirty men, whilst the rest established themselves at five other points, to become fixed stations, to raise their own vegetables, trade with the natives, and receive supplies of merchandise from the general depot at Astoria, and return to it the fruits of their labor. ”