The Daily Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Or.) 1876-1883, 1883-10-23
As Others See Us.

1911, had but sleepy existence, after
its early troubles with the Indians and
the Hudson Bay company were out
lived, until the great development
of the salmon catching and canning
industry in recent years. Now the
annual catch of this superb fish in the
Columbia is So enormous that half a
million cases of four dozen cans each
are every season shipped to the mar
kets Of all parts Of the civilized world.
This great business OF drawing wealth
oBt Of the sea with nets has built up
the once lonely little hamlet, over
Swallowed by dense forests, into live
ly commercial town. What with the
fishermen, the workmen in the Gamer
les, the men who make boats and nets,
the saw-mill operatives, the trades
people and the sailors who cruise up
and down the neighboring coasts, the
place contains a population not far
from ten thousand in the busy season
of the year.
Our engraving does not well show
the unique feature of Astoria. Only
in the foreground, for little distance
beyond the government building, do
the streets run on terra firma. Be-
yond, as far as the town extends, they
are bridges of stout fir planks, resting
on piles. The stores, hotels, ware
houses and canneries are also pile-sup-
ported over the salt water which ebbs
and flows beneath their floors. Two
OF three streets manage to climb
the steep hills that skirt the
river, and thus to get out
into the country, and another circles
around the base of the hills; but the
town fer the most part is as amphIb-
ious as beaver, taking to the water
in preference to the land. Many of
the inhabitants disdain even the mod
crate security of foundations for their
houses of piles driven in the wave
washed strand, and live in boats
which look like diminutive Noah's
Arks.
These queer crafts are tied to
wharves or to the street bridges, an
chored to what correspond to vacant
lots-guadrangular pools waiting pur-
chasers with pile-driving and house
building intentions. Their owners
return from the hard and perilous
work of fishing in the bar to spread
their nets To dry on the roofs of the
arks, cook their frugal suppers within,
and then sit out on the deck to smoke
their evening pipes.
Most of the traffic of the place is
carried on IN boats, which easily pass
underneath the streets amid the piles
and ply upon the broad bay between
the lower and upper town. There
are stages, however, which 60 from
the hotels to the wharves to meet the
big steamers from San Francisco and
the Portland steamboats,, and omni-
buses which run back and forth on the
main street, and also few drays and
trucks. Every vehicle can he heard
for half mile as it rumbles over the
resonant planks of the streets, and
the town does not have a chance to gc
to sleep to the drowsy music of the
sea, swishlng and swashing beneath it.
The people are a medley of many
nationalities, Germans, Mexicans
Italians, Spaniards and Cinnamon
with a predominance, however, of the
pushing, trading, money-making ma
tive American element. Historically
Astoria is the most interesting plac,
in Oregon. Across the broad river il
Gray's harbur, where the Yankee
Captain Gray dropped anchor in tn,
ship Columbia" in 1872, giving t.
the great river he had discovered tht
name of his vessel, and at the sam,
time securing for his country title t,
all the rich regions it holds on the Pa
cifc coast, between California and tn,
Strait Of Juan de Fuca. On littl,
stream, putting into the Columbia 1
few miles from the town, the expedi
ton of Lewis and Clarke wIntered il
1866, after its memorable journe,
across the continent. And the tow
itself is full of traditions of the Asto
colony, whose story Washington Irv
ing made part of the literature O
the English-speaking race, the worl'
over.
Oysters I'm Every Style,
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