Astoria - a Special Place in History

Panoramic View from Astoria Column

The Astoria Column

Beautiful Bas-Relief Friezes 

Wealthy Lifestyle of the 1800's - Flavel Mansion

The Flavel Mansion

We visited several sights of interest in Astoria, including the Astoria Column on Coxcomb Hill.  We climbed 164 steps of a spiral staircase to the observation deck from which we had panoramic views of the Town, River, and Ocean.  The exterior of the Column is decorated with a frieze of 22 significant historic events painted by the Italian artist, Attilo Pusterla, hired for his expertise in a bas-relief technique called sgraffito.  The column is truly outstanding and a surprising find in our part of the world.  The Column was dedicated in 1926 as a Centennial celebration and illustrates Robert Gray in the ship Columbia on the Great River of the West in 1792; and Lewis & Clark who reached the Pacific and established Fort Clatsop in 1805, along with many other historic events of the area.  Since we had visited Fort Clatsop (the replicated log structure encampment of Lewis & Clark) in previous years, we decided to spend our time seeing the Columbia River Maritime Museum.  The Museum is first class and includes information and artifacts about ship wrecks, pilot boats, lightships, and other nautical heritage of the Columbia River and Northwest Coast.  The Museum included a self-guided tour of the 1950 Lightship Columbia, which had a 600,000 candlepower lens.  Lightships were designed to serve as navigation aids by anchoring in one place to mark the entrance of an important river or dangerous reef.  For nearly a century from 1892 until 1979, a lightship marked the entrance to the Columbia River.  We also visited the Flavel House Museum, an 1885 Queen Anne style mansion built for Captain George Flavel, one of Astoria’s influential citizens of the late 1800’s.  The mansion has 14 foot high ceilings, beautiful wood work, and many of the furnishings are original as are the gas-lamp fixtures and bathroom plumbing.  Captain Flavel (1823-1893) was a noted bar pilot on the Columbia River and a prominent businessman.  Pilot boats are used even today.  Pilot boats deliver captains/pilots to cargo ships, who are preparing to enter the bar.  These experienced pilots are familiar with the local waters and bring the cargo ship into port.  On the day we arrived, we saw a pilot boat come out to meet a cargo ship about the same time we had entered the bar; the pilot of the cargo ship quickly got underway and we had to keep to one side of the channel.  Astoria, named after John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), is indeed an interesting place to visit.  Astor established the American Fur Company in 1808 and founded Fort Astoria in 1811, creating the first U.S. community on the Pacific Coast!  A community that played an important role in American history and continues today to play an important role on the Columbia River.  Even cruise ships have discovered Astoria.

The Lightship Columbia - 1950's

A bad day on the Columbia Bar - Pilot Boat

Got d' Fever and Cruise Ship at Astoria