THE ASTORIA ARCHIVE · Open this section in the Archive
Most history pages are a list of links: they tell you where things are and leave you to fetch them. This Archive works the other way. It pulls the record in and shows it here, in place, wherever the holder's terms allow, tied record by record to the source it came from, so you do not have to leave to learn something. And the source is always one click away, on the record's face, for anyone who wants to check that we got it right. A full research paper, in website form: nothing here asks to be believed on our say-so.
Every collection this Archive draws on, named here, with its terms on the line. If a record here came from a holder, that holder stands in this list.
Clatsop County
The county's historic papers, free and keyword searchable, page by page: the Daily Morning Astorian, the Morning Astorian, and Astoria's Finnish papers Toveri and Toveritar. Run by the University of Oregon Libraries.
Access: Free to read. Historic issues are public domain.
Clatsop County
The national newspaper archive: the same Astoria titles, free, plus the US Newspaper Directory, which lists the papers of every county in the country from 1690 to today.
Access: Free to read. Historic issues are public domain.
Clatsop County
The county's memory keeper, in Astoria: 35,000 historic photographs by the Society's own count, diaries from the 1840s, city directories, maps, and Finnish and Native American family history materials. Its scanning center has put more than 42 local collections on the Internet Archive, 4,357 items, free to read: the city directories and the school yearbooks among them, in full.
Access: Its digital archive is free on the Internet Archive. The photograph collection itself has no public database; photographs reach the public inside the Society's journal, its exhibits, and credited republications, and the rest is research in person: for photographs, ask the archivist. For a visit: one society pass covers the society's three town museums, the Heritage Museum, the Flavel House, and the Oregon Film Museum; ask at any of them. The Heritage Museum is entered by a few stairs, and an elevator inside serves its floors.
Clatsop County
The river's museum in Astoria: more than 22,000 objects, and a research library with more than 1,000 charts and maps. The museum counts its photographs two ways on its own pages, 35,000 on its Collections page, some 30,000 on its library page, and this card prints both counts with their pages rather than choosing. Its library catalog can be searched online, its journal's back issues stand free as PDFs, and its exhibits and lectures stand online.
Access: The research library is open by appointment, Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 to 5; staff copies run ten cents a page. The Quarterdeck's back issues are free PDFs on the museum's site. For photographs, ask the museum.
Clatsop County
One search across the Northwest's archives: records from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho libraries, museums, and the state archives, gathered for the Digital Public Library of America.
Access: Free to search. Rights sit with each record and its home institution.
Clatsop County
The state's collection, with deep Clatsop holdings: aerial photographs of Astoria and Seaside, Frank Woodfield's photographs of the 1922 fire, early photographs of Seaside and Tillamook Head, and oral histories, including Astoria cannery worker Peter A. Huhtala.
Access: Free to view, and many items are free to download. Rights are per record: check the record's own licence, and ask OHS before republishing.
Clatsop County
Street by street maps of Astoria drawn for fire insurers, editions from 1884 to 1908: every building's footprint, material, and use. Seaside editions from 1914 and 1921 are held by the Oregon Historical Society.
Access: Free to read and download. These maps are public domain.
Clatsop County
The government's survey maps from 1884 to today, free to download: watch the coastline, the jetties, and the towns change across a century of editions.
Access: Free downloads, public domain.
Astoria
The library's own history pages: a digital archive of scrapbooks and photographs, a card index to Astoria newspapers from the 1860s to 1999, newspaper microfilm by appointment, and a guide to researching the history of your own house.
Access: Free. Some services need an Astoria library card.
Warrenton
Warrenton's own museum. No website or online catalog for it was found in this research: its collections reach the web through the county historical society's scanning center, and the rest is in person. This section prints that plainly rather than dressing it up.
Not online; the record prints what the holder offers in person.
Access: In person. Digitized pieces are free on the Internet Archive.
Warrenton
The fort itself, Battery Russell, the military museum, and the Peter Iredale on the beach: Warrenton's history interpreted where it happened.
Access: Oregon State Parks. Park entry is free; a day-use parking permit applies, $10 a day for Oregon residents, $12 out of state, and no charge if you walk, bike, or ride in.
Warrenton
The town library, run by the City of Warrenton. No dedicated local history collection is published on its listing; for Warrenton's past, start with the museum above and the county research center.
Access: Free.
Seaside
Seaside's own keeper: exhibits, historical archives, and the Laurene Hawley Library and resource room. Part of its collection has been digitized through the county society's scanning center. Open Wednesday to Saturday, 11 to 4; admission by donation.
Access: In person; the research room comes with membership. Some holdings are online through the county scanning center.
Gearhart
Gearhart's records, honestly: Gearhart has no library or museum of its own in this research. Its records were kept with the Clatsop Plains settlements and digitized by the county historical society's scanning center, free to read on the Internet Archive.
Access: Free to read.
Cannon Beach
Cannon Beach's own archive: an extensive collection of historic photographs and documents, and recorded oral histories from its own studio. The 1898 cannon from the USS Shark and the ship's capstan are on display. No online photo catalog was found; the photographs live here, in person. Open Wednesday to Saturday, 11 to 4; admission by donation.
Access: In person. Donations accepted.
Cannon Beach
A volunteer run library founded in 1927. Its own history page tells the library's story; no archives program is published.
Access: Free.
Astoria
The oldest cannery building on the Columbia, built in 1875 at Pier 39 (100 39th Street): three former freezer rooms of exhibits, four historic wooden gillnet boats with cotton nets, canning machinery, and life-size banners of the women who worked the lines. Much of it can be touched. The museum is run by the Hanthorn Cannery Foundation, founded in 2003 by former Bumble Bee workers and managers, and its own site carries history essays on Astoria, the cannery association, and Pier 39.
Access: Free, self-guided, open every day, 9 AM to 6 PM. Donations appreciated. No school or group terms are published.
Astoria
The 125-foot column on Coxcomb Hill: Attilio Pusterla's 1926 sgraffito mural spirals 525 feet of this coast's history around the tower, and 164 steps climb inside it. The Column and its park are held by the Friends of the Astoria Column and the City of Astoria. Its own site carries an illustrated history timeline and close-up views of the mural.
Access: Visiting and climbing are free; the park is open daily, 5 AM to 10 PM. Parking is $10 per vehicle, and the pass is good for a year. No school or field-trip terms are published.
Clatsop County
The Society's own digital archive: more than 42 local collections and 4,357 items, free to read: the city directories and the school yearbooks in full, its journal Cumtux, church records, the Clatsop Plains records, and more, gathered by its scanning center since 2018.
Access: Free to read. Rights sit with the Society and with each item's own record.
Clatsop County
The town directories in full text, from the 1890s forward: Astoria, Warrenton, Seaside, and the smaller towns, naming residents, businesses, and addresses year by year.
Access: Free to read. Editions published before 1930 are public domain.
Clatsop County
The high school yearbooks of Astoria, Warrenton, Seaside, Knappa, and Jewell, in full: The Zephyrus among them, from the 1890s forward.
Access: Free to read. Editions published before 1930 are public domain.
Clatsop County
The Society's quarterly journal of county history, in full text across its run, from its first issues in 1981 forward: local history written from the Society's own collections.
Access: Free to read. Cumtux is the Society's own copyrighted journal; the photographs inside each issue are credited there.
Clatsop County
The Society's moving pictures: 21 public videos by the Society's own count, pioneer interviews among them, with talks and Seaside history programs.
Access: Free to watch. The full pioneer interviews stand by request to the curator.
Clatsop County
The Corps' own history of the Columbia River's South Jetty, with photographs of the jetty's building credited to the Clatsop County Historical Society and the Columbia River Maritime Museum.
Access: Free to read. A courtesy credit is not a license: the photographs stay their holders'.
Clatsop County
The Columbia River Maritime Museum's journal, fifty years old in 2024: its back issues stand free as PDFs on the museum's site, rich with the museum's own collection photographs.
Access: Free to read. The Quarterdeck is the museum's own publication.
Clatsop County
The museum's exhibits online: the Rutherford Masks, the founder Rolf Klep's artwork and story, and the Wendt collection's Pacific charts.
Access: Free to read.
Clatsop County
Every mask in the collection photographed, with its dimensions and materials, interpreted by Tony Johnson, Chairman of the Chinook Indian Nation.
Access: Free to read.
Clatsop County
The museum's lecture series, recorded and free to watch: talks on the river's history, its pilots, its fisheries, and its towns.
Access: Free to watch.
The genealogical library the public library subscribes to: census records, family and local histories, and research guides reaching back to the 1700s, opened with an Astoria Public Library card.
Access: Free with an Astoria Public Library card: the card number is the key.
NewsBank's obituary archive: United States obituaries and death notices from 1704 to today, the genealogist's first stop for a death date and a family's names.
Access: Free with an Astoria Public Library card.
The Nation is made up of the five westernmost Chinookan tribes at the mouth of the Columbia, the Clatsop and Cathlamet of Oregon among them. Its own site carries its history, its language work, and its government, in its own words.
Access: The Nation's own page. Linked only: nothing from tribally governed collections is reproduced here.
A collaboration between the Chinook Indian Nation and the Portland State University History Department, more than a decade running: short narratives, primary documents, images, and video interviews about the Chinookan peoples of the lower Columbia, with a historical timeline.
Access: The Nation's own telling, with the university. Linked only: nothing is reproduced here.
The confederated tribes of the Clatsop and Nehalem peoples of the northern Oregon coast. Their own site carries their history, their culture, their events, and their tribal government, in their own words.
Access: The tribes' own page. Linked only: nothing from tribally governed collections is reproduced here.
The Grand Ronde tribe's own Tribal History curriculum: classroom-ready units from early learning through high school, written by the tribe for Oregon schools under Senate Bill 13.
Access: Free at the tribe's site, as published. Linked, credited, and unmodified: the Archive does not re-host it.
The Siletz tribes' own Senate Bill 13 curriculum: free lesson downloads by grade, from kindergarten through the eleventh grade, on Siletz history, homelands, culture, and government today.
Access: Free at the tribe's site, as published. Linked, credited, and unmodified: the Archive does not re-host it.
An Indigenous-led nonprofit connecting people to the history, living cultures, and ecology of the Columbia River system through Indigenous voices: river sites, a library of stories and listening, and education programs that bring Native artists and educators into schools.
Access: Free to read and listen at Confluence. Its classroom programs are relationships, not downloads.
A full-scale Chinookan plankhouse at the Cathlapotle village site, about thirty-five miles upriver: built in partnership with the Chinook Indian Nation, Portland State University, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, opened March 29, 2005, and serving as an education and interpretive center.
Access: As published by the Friends of the Refuge: the Plankhouse is not open to the public at this time, while the Refuge revisits its interpretive material with its Tribal partners.
The park's traveling trunk on Clatsop and Chinookan culture of the lower Columbia River, for grades three through five: replica artifacts, hands-on activities, a resource guide, videos, and posters, built on the expedition journals.
Access: Free loan to classrooms, by reservation, through the park.
The city's bicentennial legacy gift, a park across from City Hall honoring Astoria's Chinese heritage. The project's own site tells the Chinatown story: the district along Bond and Astor Streets, and the cannery years, when about three quarters of Astoria's Chinese men worked in the canneries, and Chinese crews built railroads, the sewer system, and the jetties.
Access: Free to visit, in person at Heritage Square and online.
The expedition's ground, kept by the Park Service: Fort Clatsop, the Salt Works in Seaside, and Station Camp and Dismal Nitch across the river.
Access: Free online. Park visits carry the park's own hours and fees. The park's own brochure states that the exhibits and trails around the Fort Clatsop replica are wheelchair accessible, and that a braille brochure and a tactile map are kept at the visitor center.
The expedition's own words, complete: the Moulton edition of the journals, almost 5,000 pages, free to read and search, every keeper's entries, the Fort Clatsop winter and the salt camp among them, with an index of people, places, and Native nations.
Access: Free to read. The journal texts are public domain; the edition's notes are the university's.
The federal record, searchable by name: census pages, photographs, and documents. The 1950 Census name index lives here.
Access: Free to search.
Every name in the 1950 census, indexed and free: the family historian's first stop for this county's families.
Access: Free.
The deeper family records: census images, vital records, and the county's paper trail, free to search.
Access: Free, and viewing the record images requires a free FamilySearch account.
The University of Oregon and Oregon State's shared collection: photographs, documents, and collections from holders across the state, county societies among them, shown in place.
Access: Free. Rights sit with each record and its holder.
Millions of books and records in full text, the county historical society's own journal, Cumtux, among them.
Access: Free to read.
More than 10,000 recordings made between 1901 and 1925, streamed free at their holder: the sound of the very years this page covers.
Access: Free to listen, at the Library of Congress.
Every record on this site names its source on its face, with a link to that source where one exists. Where two sources disagree, the record prints the disagreement instead of settling it quietly. Every record also carries a citation, written for you in MLA, APA, or Chicago style, with a copy button: cite this page and the trail leads back to the holder. At some collections the Archive goes further and prepares the search for you, opening the holder's own results for the name or the place, so the check takes one click instead of a morning.
Where a record is public domain, it is shown here whole: the page, the photograph, the sheet, in place. Where a holder's terms keep a record at its own home, the record here says so, says why, and takes you there. Carried is this Archive's word for the first kind: the whole record stands here. Linked is its word for the second: it stands at its holder, and the way there is printed. The nations' records are the standing example: tribal collections are linked only, never carried, and their histories are told at their own sites in their own words. Some collections ask for a library card, HeritageQuest, the Heritage Hub, and the Astorian's modern run among them. The card is the key the holder chose; this Archive links to the holder's own sign-in and never goes around it. Every photograph shown here carries its credit on its face, at reading size.
Every entry comes from a source, and every entry names it. Each record is checked against the holding archive's own pages first; where the archive does not say, the public record is searched. A date is printed only at the precision its source supports: to the day, to the month, or to the year, and the record says which. The dates in a record are the record's own dates, the day the thing happened, never the day someone here looked at it. A thin place is printed thin; a gap is printed as a gap.
Corrections are part of the record. When a fact here is corrected, the correction prints on the record itself, beside the fact, with its source; nothing is quietly swapped. If you hold a source that settles something this Archive prints as open, or if a record here gets your family's or your archive's material wrong or credits it wrongly, the record wants to know. The surest route is the holding archive named on the record's face: they keep the original, and this record corrects from theirs. Holders are credited the way they ask to be credited, and a credit corrected is printed the same way, on the record. This Archive is gathered and kept by one volunteer, who checks every record as carefully as one pair of hands can. Corrections, questions, and anything you would like to add are welcome: to reach the Archive, click here.
The record can leave with you: take the record as a file, under its plain license. What you hold can join it: bring what you have, under the published policy. And the pictures this Archive holds in the public domain stand gathered to use freely.