the film forum library tutorial contact

Water Under the Bridge: 10.15.08 by Staff The Daily Astorian, October 15, 2008

From the pages of Astoria's daily newspapers

10 years ago this week - 1998

The city will cash in on someone's long-lost coins, confiscated 16 years ago from two teen-agers under suspicious circumstances, to be sold at auction.

Some of the coins are old - one dates to 1767 and many are from the early to mid-1800s.

Some are rare - an 1853 Chicago World's Fair commemorative coin, a James Garfield commemorative coin issued after his assassination, a German coin from the Nazi era, half pennies and zinc pennies minted during World War II.

The coins have been collecting dust at the Astoria Police Department since 1982. Sgt. Dave Logsdon seized the loose coins from teen-age boys from Hillsboro who tried to sell them at a secondhand store in downtown Astoria.

Logsdon sent teletypes to police in the Portland metropolitan area but never heard from those agencies or read any news reports about a missing coin collection. He never heard from the kids again.

Bumblebee is buying.

For months, West Coast fishermen have been stranded in port with tons of tuna, but tuna canneries in Ilwaco, Wash.; San Pedro, Calif.; and San Diego began buying this week.

The big three U.S. tuna companies - Bumblebee, Chicken of the Sea and Starkist - turned them away earlier this year, saying they already had all the albacore they could handle from foreign fishermen.

Then, warm waters caused by El Nino concentrated the fish in pockets, making them easier to catch, fishermen said.

If they take their fish to Ilwaco, Wash., the fishermen will get as little as $900 per ton. Earlier in the year, canneries paid as much as $1,960 per ton to foreign fishermen.

Federal officials have added Clatsop County to a growing list of high unemployment areas in Oregon.

The county becomes the first "labor surplus area" in the state's northwest corner as Oregon's cooling economy leaves outlying rural areas struggling in its wake.

What the designation means for Clatsop County is a better shot at luring employers bidding on federal contracts.

50 years ago - 1958

Gov. Robert D. Holmes said Tuesday night that his predicted catastrophe for the Snake River salmon run began Tuesday afternoon with the death of more than 1,000 salmon at the Idaho Power Company's Oxbow dam site.

The governor said a report from Albert Day, director of the Oregon Fish Commission, indicated that repair of a cofferdam on the Snake River had stranded "undetermined thousands" of the migratory fish in deep pools at Oxbow and the fish were "dying for lack of oxygen."

The Royal Mail line freighter-passenger liner Loch Loyal, one of the newest, fastest and finest ships in the Pacific coast trade, was an Astoria visitor Thursday.

The Loch Loyal is the first ship of the Royal Mail line to call here since 1955. From Astoria the ship continues to Seattle.

The Loch Loyal has spacious passenger accommodations and a swimming pool. The ship carries a crew of 72.

The light on Tillamook rock which for years flashed its brilliance to mariners off the Oregon Coast until it was turned off Sept. 1, 1957, is due to come on again.

A group called "Save the Tillamook Light Association" has been formed to restore the facility. It hopes to get funds for acquiring the abandoned lighthouse and re-conditioning the facilities and then turn them over to the State Park Commission as a historical monument.

75 years ago - 1933

Rock for the south jetty repair will begin moving from Fisher's Landing quarry near Vancouver, Wash., to Fort Stevens over the S.P. & S. railroad, according to word received here Tuesday from Portland.

There is no indication that more than the first allotment of 55,000 tons of rock for the jetty repair will come from Fisher's Landing quarry. Plans first announced stated that the remainder of the 600,000 tons required would come from Green Mountain and these plans are apparently going forward since a crew of about 15 men are at Green Mountain for prospecting and survey work.

Saturday, Dec. 16, has been set as the tentative date for the launching of the U.S. battle cruiser "Astoria" at the Bremerton navy yards, according to definite word received Thursday by Secretary Walter Nelson from Rear Admiral E.H. Campbell, commandant.

Astoria is expected to participate in the ceremonies attending the launching of the warship to which her name has been given. Mayor Ten Brook has written for details as to what part this city will take in such ceremonies. A considerable delegation of citizens is expected to attend.

The federal emergency administration of public works has allotted $20 million to the war department for starting construction of the Bonneville Dam in the Columbia River, the war department announced today.

A call has been received at the local offices of the federal re-employment bureau for 100 cranberry pickers, B.P. Thorsell, district re-employment manager, announced Friday. The pickers are sought for cranberry bogs in Clatsop County and Pacific County, Wash.

For the convenience of surf bathers, clam diggers and other Seasiders interested in the movements of the ocean, two clock faces indicating high and low tides have been set on a post in front of the Hotel Seaside within a few feet of the Prom.