In One Ear: Local brevities
Tidbits from The Daily Morning Astorian, May 9, 1888:
• Astoria spends $300 a month (about $9,850 now) in lighting the streets.
• Astoria mechanics and machinists, engineers, pilots and steamboat masters are in every port and harbor from San Diego to Cook Inlet, Alaska, this summer.
• There are 28 salmon canneries at and near Astoria, employing several thousand men ...
Note: The first cannery on the lower Columbia River, a scow owned by the Hume brothers and Andrew Hapgood, operating off the east end of Wahkiakum County, Washington Territory, opened in 1866.
• Astoria has 11 miles of waterfront, where vessels drawing 22 feet of water can load, discharge and, in safety, depart. There is room in the bay for the entire shipping of the coast, foreign and domestic.
Note: Part of the waterfront was Scow Bay (pictured in 1887) which extended from 17th Street to 24th Street, separating Uppertown from the rest of the city. It was later filled in, and Columbia Memorial Hospital is among the buildings located where the bay once was.
• The first streetcar drawn by a horse to run over and through the streets of Astoria came tinkling down Squemoqua Street (Commercial Street) yesterday afternoon, crowded with passengers all eager to have the first ride. ... The car No. 1 was run over the entire length of the track ... Everything worked all OK, and the regular business of the Astoria Street Railway Co. is expected to begin tomorrow.
Note: In 1910, the Astoria Electric Railway Co. took over the street cars. On June 30, 1924, Astoria Transit Co. buses hit the road, ending the streetcar era. (Photo: Clatsop County Historical Society)
