Interesting Facts

The Fact Cards stand here under their own name at last: the record's most startling cards, dealt one at a time below, each a whole record with its date, its words, and its source named under it. Under the deck stand the town's stories in their gathered form: the two fires, and the singular souls.

Fact Cards · Card 1 of 9

September 1846 · Cannon Beach

The USS Shark wrecks, and names a town

In September 1846, the United States Navy schooner Shark wrecks on the Columbia River bar, and three of her cannon break away. One is pulled from the sand at Arch Cape in 1898, and that cannon gives Cannon Beach its name. The 1898 cannon and the ship's capstan are kept today at the Cannon Beach History Center.

Source: Oregon Coast Beach Connection

The cards come in a new order on every visit, and no card comes up twice until every card has been dealt.

The Town That Burned Twice

Astoria's defining catastrophe happened twice. In July 1883 the waterfront fire took much of the wooden downtown; on December 8, 1922, fire ran through the pilings under the streets and took the commercial heart in about eleven hours. The downtown that stands today is a twenties rebuild on those ashes, and the houses the fires could not reach are why the old town still reads on the hill. Both fires stand below as records, each with its source.

July 1883 · Astoria

The first great fire

In July 1883, fire destroys much of downtown Astoria, a city then built largely of wood over the tide flats. It is the first of the town's two great fires; the second, in December 1922, is the one Astoria still marks.

Source: Wikipedia, 1922 Astoria, Oregon fire

December 8, 1922 · Astoria

The second great fire

At about 2 a.m. on December 8, 1922, fire starts under downtown Astoria and runs through the wooden pilings beneath the streets. In about eleven hours it destroys up to 30 blocks, leaves some 2,500 people homeless, and kills one person. Crews dynamite buildings in its path to stop it. Frank Woodfield's photographs of the ashes are held by the Oregon Historical Society.

Source: Wikipedia, 1922 Astoria, Oregon fire

Fire and Rebuilding, in the Museum Walk

The walk's gallery of the 1922 fire and the town that rose from it, stop by stop, every stop a record.

Frank Woodfield, who photographed the ashes

His photographs of Astoria after the 1922 fire are held by the Oregon Historical Society; his person record stands in the names.

Houses and Builders: the rebuild in brick

The Astor Hotel, the bank, the fire station: the chapter of the houses tells the twenties rebuild the fires made necessary.

The Town's Singular Souls

The lives this record cannot tell straight, because the people were not straight-line people: told here with affection, and sourced like everything else in the Archive.

John E. Wicks, and the forty-eight hours

The Finnish architect of three hundred Astoria buildings: the morning after the 1922 fire, the town tells, he laid his stopwatch on the mayor's desk and promised the new bank's plans in forty-eight hours. His record stands with the builders.

D. K. Warren, who diked the river

He platted a town, ran its sawmill, built its housing as a company, and diked the Skipanon country first; by the tradition his house's nomination records, its front window kept a lamp burning as a beacon for skippers coming up the river.

Captain George Flavel

The bar pilot whose house fills a whole block, tower and all: three generations of Flavels stand in the houses chapter, and his person record stands in the names.

Attilio Pusterla, who painted the Column in spiral

The artist whose sgraffito frieze climbs the Astoria Column, telling the region's early history in pictures as a visitor climbs: his record stands in the names, and his work stands over the town.