Now that I am a “senior citizen,” I find myself harboring negative thoughts about some of the clothing and accessories worn by a large segment of our young people of today. A ball cap on backwards gives me the urge to turn their head around. Body piercings make me wish for a strong magnet.
As the last decade of the 19th century rolled into view, the recently platted towns of Sealand and Nahcotta on the North Beach Peninsula were not only on the cutting edge of a new era, they were harbingers of things to come in Pacific County.
“Plungers” were the ubiquitous sail boats predominate on Shoalwater Bay from the 1850s until the late 1880s. Perhaps they were best described by Frank Turner (1882-1961) in his column “From Auld Lang Syne” which ran for many years in the Ilwaco’s Tribune:
Another familiar name for Stanley Point (the location of dream-cities Stanley, Napoleon, and Chetlo Harbor) is Cougar Bend. Of all the names for that particular location on the Naselle River, the story of “Cougar Bend” is most closely associated with the pioneers of the area. It is also the …
Much to the amusement of other settlements around the shores of the newly named “Willapa” Bay, the slogan “Baltimore of the Pacific” continued to be used for promotional purposes long after the boom days of South Bend were over.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
“A lightship,” the book “Observing Our Peninsula’s Past” says, “is a floating lighthouse, a vessel anchored at sea to mark exceptional navigation hazards, and it is meant to be noticed. Its hull is fire-engine red, powerful lamps gleam from its fore and/or aft masts, it broadcasts on a radio…
The Naselle-Grays River Valley communities had a lot of Finns and “Scandahoovians” back in the 1950s and ’60s. As a result, a number of customs from their ancestral homelands found their way into the local lifestyle.
You’ve probably noticed a few buildings near the Astoria waterfront standing around in seeming reproach of passing time.
Paint a nostalgic picture: two boys in a boat, first light, gray as a tarnished coffee pot. Hard wind out of the north, incoming tide rising steadily on Willapa Bay. A light rain begins to fall. The year hovers around 1964. One boy pulls on a pair of wooden oars and a small dingy surges acro…
On March 16, 1915, around 10,000 people gathered at the mouth of the Columbia River to welcome the Great Northern, a palatial high-speed cruiser. The ship had been built, along with its sister ship, the Northern Pacific, to whisk passengers between Flavel near present-day Warrenton and San F…
Some years ago, Deep River resident and part-time Chinook Observer correspondent, Richard (Nick) Nikkila, began to write down his memories of growing up in Deep River during the 1950s and early 60s. Eventually, it became a booklet entitled, “A Collection of Recollections.” Nikkila donated th…
Slang is unofficial and unconventional. It lives outside the bounds of “proper” use of language, yet it reflects how people really talk to one another.
A tidbit for history buffs: An interesting but sad website, “Death Certificates of Finns in Pacific County, Washington, 1908-1950,” excerpted from files belonging to the Family History Center at Vancouver, Washington, by Merle A. Reinikka (tinyurl.com/Pacific-County-Finn-deaths).
COLUMBIA RIVER — Kent Craford’s wife used to joke that she’d probably have to bury him in the old gillnet boat he bought on a whim when they were young and broke and that for years his children called “the rusty boat.”
Some years ago, Deep River resident and part-time Observer correspondent, Richard (Nick) Nikkila, began to write down his memories of growing up in Deep River during the 1950s and early 60s. Eventually, it became a booklet entitled, “A Collection of Recollections.” Nikkila donated the bookle…
Many, many years before the coming of the white man, the Indians travelled over a route leading from the mouth of the Columbia River to Puget Sound, by the way of Shoalwater Bay and Grays Harbor. As the whites began to settle the coast country, this was the route over which they carried thei…
“He always went by J.A., never by John or Alvin,” said Morehead’s granddaughter Dorothy Trondsen Williams. “In later life, his pride and joy was Morehead Park. He constructed picnic tables, cooking areas, and a bathhouse on the grounds. There were also unique items like the figurehead from t…
The year 1889 was a big one for B. Aksel Seaborg of Ilwaco. In January, at the Pacific County Courthouse in Oysterville, he filed the plat for his newly created town of Sealand. As a major stockholder and member of the board of the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company, he was confident that…
If only I’d known enough then to ask…
As the last decade of the 19th century rolled into view, the recently platted towns of Sealand and Nahcotta on the North Beach Peninsula were not only on the cutting edge of a new era, they we…
“Plungers” were the ubiquitous sail boats predominate on Shoalwater Bay from the 1850s until the late 1880s. Perhaps they were best described by Frank Turner (1882-1961) in his column “From Au…
Another familiar name for Stanley Point (the location of dream-cities Stanley, Napoleon, and Chetlo Harbor) is Cougar Bend. Of all the names for that particular location on the Naselle River, …
Much to the amusement of other settlements around the shores of the newly named “Willapa” Bay, the slogan “Baltimore of the Pacific” continued to be used for promotional purposes long after th…
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
“A lightship,” the book “Observing Our Peninsula’s Past” says, “is a floating lighthouse, a vessel anchored at sea to mark exceptional navigation hazards, and it is meant to be noticed. Its hu…
The Naselle-Grays River Valley communities had a lot of Finns and “Scandahoovians” back in the 1950s and ’60s. As a result, a number of customs from their ancestral homelands found their way i…
You’ve probably noticed a few buildings near the Astoria waterfront standing around in seeming reproach of passing time.
Paint a nostalgic picture: two boys in a boat, first light, gray as a tarnished coffee pot. Hard wind out of the north, incoming tide rising steadily on Willapa Bay. A light rain begins to fal…
On March 16, 1915, around 10,000 people gathered at the mouth of the Columbia River to welcome the Great Northern, a palatial high-speed cruiser. The ship had been built, along with its sister…
Some years ago, Deep River resident and part-time Chinook Observer correspondent, Richard (Nick) Nikkila, began to write down his memories of growing up in Deep River during the 1950s and earl…
Slang is unofficial and unconventional. It lives outside the bounds of “proper” use of language, yet it reflects how people really talk to one another.
A tidbit for history buffs: An interesting but sad website, “Death Certificates of Finns in Pacific County, Washington, 1908-1950,” excerpted from files belonging to the Family History Center …
COLUMBIA RIVER — Kent Craford’s wife used to joke that she’d probably have to bury him in the old gillnet boat he bought on a whim when they were young and broke and that for years his childre…
Some years ago, Deep River resident and part-time Observer correspondent, Richard (Nick) Nikkila, began to write down his memories of growing up in Deep River during the 1950s and early 60s. E…
Many, many years before the coming of the white man, the Indians travelled over a route leading from the mouth of the Columbia River to Puget Sound, by the way of Shoalwater Bay and Grays Harb…
“He always went by J.A., never by John or Alvin,” said Morehead’s granddaughter Dorothy Trondsen Williams. “In later life, his pride and joy was Morehead Park. He constructed picnic tables, co…
The year 1889 was a big one for B. Aksel Seaborg of Ilwaco. In January, at the Pacific County Courthouse in Oysterville, he filed the plat for his newly created town of Sealand. As a major sto…
If only I’d known enough then to ask…
Being isolated from the coronavirus pandemic gave lots of time to reminisce about remarkable changes that have transformed the world and reshaped our lives since the 1930s. They’re changes mos…
The other day, as I began work on an essay about the first Columbia River Lightship, No. 50, I checked something in Jim Gibbs’s book, “Pacific Graveyard.” That set me to thinking about Gibbs’s…
For those of us who have known the Lower Columbia for the better part of a century, the little settlement of McGowan almost comes into focus as we drive the highway between the Fort Columbia t…
Back in the day, before Bruceport fell in, the settlement enjoyed a brief period of fame as county seat. Not the Pacific County seat, however. From 1854 until 1860, the little town on the east…
Mark Winant
Danish immigrant Heinrich Wiegardt had run away to sea when he was a boy of 13 or 14, sailed the world and, in the early 1870s, arrived in Oysterville to work for the Morgan Oyster Company. He…
Artist Charles Funk is an elder of the Chinook Tribe and is a past member of the Chinook council.
In the early 1960s, the bad boys were drinking beer, not smoking pot or imbibing in psychedelic drugs. On Friday nights, a few of the athletes would sneak a beer or two, after a football game.…
While continuing the research to find approximately how many ships met with trouble on our part of the coast — Oregon and Washington — between 1880 and 1910, I have been alarmed to find two de…
In the spring of 1980 Pacific Northwesterners watched as a Cascade volcano began to yawn and stretch. Perhaps the first thing that caused the Peninsula to take the threat of eruption seriously…
The old settlement east of Scarborough Hill has been called Chenookville, Chenook and sometimes, Chinook, but it is not to be confused with today’s thriving settlement of Chinook west of the t…
Perhaps the pandemic is causing personal introspection, or perhaps, an intermittent stroll down memory lane. Maybe at my age, this is a good thing: the old noggin is still tracking, still reme…
In a seldom-told part of the Chinook treaty story is the role of Robert Shortess (1797-1878). Shortess, an early Oregon pioneer, played a significant role in the acquisition of Oregon Territor…
A rare first-hand account of a frontier court session is provided us by James G. Swan, the earliest historian/anthropologist to live for any length of time on the shores of Shoalwater Bay in t…
From 1818 to 1846, the vast expanse of Oregon Country encompassed the area that now forms part of the present-day Canadian province of British Columbia, all of the U.S. states of Oregon, Washi…
The first agreement between the Lower Chinooks and Washington Hall was signed in 1848 by Hall and by two Chinook chiefs: Elwahco (also known as Elwah or Ellewa) who was the son of Comcomly’s s…
World War I, what was known at the time as the Great War, began in Europe in 1914. In spring of 1917 the United States entered that conflict, and in November 1918 it concluded. As soldiers ret…
West Coast news clippings from the 1880s and 1890s are loaded with nuggets that bring an adventurous — and sometimes dangerous — era to life.
In the late 1980s, when I was proofreader for the Chinook Observer, the editor assigned me to construct a time-line of highlights from back issues. It was to be printed in a 1989 Observer issu…
Officially, Pacific City existed from March 22, 1849 to Feb. 26, 1852. It’s difficult to identify where it was located, no matter how you might go about it. Now, 180-some years later, there ar…
Although Pacific County’s first city was over almost before it had begun, an astonishing number of the area’s earliest and most influential settlers were introduced to the region as residents …
One of the myths that some historians have perpetuated over the years is that Henry Yesler of Seattle operated the “first steam sawmill in the Territory of Washington.”
Upon first learning of the earliest city in Pacific County — a city located on Cape Disappointment — the response is usually, “Really! Where?” That is still my reaction after a lifetime of bei…
The other day I watched the Columbia River, as tall, meringue-tipped wind waves blew from Clatsop spit (and seemingly eternity beyond) northeast to bash themselves against the rocks at Point E…
I rode my motorcycle around Grays River Valley in the days after January’s wild storms died down.
During the past 10 years I have had the unique privilege of talking every day with World War II veterans and their families. Needless to say, I have been told many, many stories. But of all th…
In the 1880s, 1890s, and 1900s, the wheat harvest and timber crops of the region drew sailing ships, like big moths, to the mouth of the Columbia River. Some of those ships piled up on the san…
RAYMOND — Jerry Bowman begins each tour by eagerly creating a perspective for what life was like in the late 1800s. He proceeds to draws visitors into the time period with the infectious manne…
Amateur historians and cocktail fanatics alike can raise a rather ironic glass to toast one of America’s most romanticized law enforcement flops. This fall marks the 100th anniversary of the N…
Early this summer, Judy Little came to Pacific County from her home in California as she does most years. She came to take part in the Chinook First Salmon Ceremony and to pay homage to her an…
I had come to understand and discuss some of the hazards of the mouth of the Columbia River which beset shipping bound to and from the Port of Portland. The fabulous evergreen forests of the C…
Wednesday, July 24
We went to the moon 50 years ago.
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