Astoria is a city in Oregon. It's on the Columbia River, near the Pacific Ocean. The Astoria Column, a towering hilltop monument with murals depicting area history, offers panoramic views. The Columbia River Maritime Museum showcases fishing, shipping and military history in a waterfront building. Set in a Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion, Flavel House Museum features period furniture as well as manicured gardens. ― Google
Weather: 46°F (8°C), Wind W at 8 mph (13 km/h), 83% Humidity Weather data
Founded: 1811
Population: 10,343 (2021)
ZIP Code: 97103
Founder: John Jacob Astor astoria.or.us
Area codes: 503 and 971
Elevation: 118 ft (36 m)
It purportedly became the first permanent US settlement on the west coast in 1810. American History USA.
That position should be understood in context. It fails to recognize that people we call Chinook Indians had lived there for perhaps thousands of years. Also, in 1810 San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco were already founded, but they do not count as “permanent US settlements” because California was not a US territory until 1848.
When I went to law school at NYU in 1990 I used to commute to Grand Central Station and then take a number 6 subway to Astor Place to walk a short distance to the school on Washington Square Park. Astor place, like Astoria, is named after John Jacob Astor, head of the American Fur Company, and it was Astor's trading post that created the first US settlement in Oregon. (The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is also named after the Astor family and their historic homeland Waldorf, Germany.) New York subway station walls are decorated with individualized tiles; the Astor Place station tiles depict beavers, which represent the beavers that died to give their pelts for beaver hats and line the pockets of Astor.
Oregon is called the Beaver State in honor of those beavers. Fur, like minerals and timber, was one of the major raw materials that were exported out of Oregon.
John Jacob Astor was the great grandfather of John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man on the Titanic (and perhaps the richest man in the world). He boarded the Titanic with his pregnant wife and reportedly tried to talk his way onto Titanic lifeboats when only women and children were allowed, then stood by as people were trying to free the remaining boats. John Jacob Astor IV became one of many people in history who died trying to get his pregnant wife to the United States in order that his child might be born here.
The Chinook Indians are, this month, January 2020, in United States Federal Court fighting for recognition as a tribe. Chinook Tribe Back In Court Monday On Long Quest To Regain Federal Recognition.
It formed the entire basis for the United States claiming the Oregon Territory from Great Britain. That’s the modern states of Washington and Oregon.
Although an American expedition in 1792 led by merchant sea captain Robert Gray entered the mouth of the Columbia River, the U.S. didn’t follow up and that entire area north of California and west of Vancouver Island pretty much remained unclaimed.
However, in 1798, an expedition led by British naval commander George Vancouver (namesake of the cities in Washington and British Columbia) mapped the first 100 miles of the river inland. Again, apart from publishing a new map of the “Columbia River”, the British didn’t follow up.
Nevertheless, both American and British fur traders started to move into the area even though the area wasn’t within the grant of the British Northwest Company or part of the United States. As such, in 1811, a merchant with the Northwest Company started at the source of the Columbia in the Rocky Mountains with the idea that he would map the entire river, strengthening a claim that it was British territory.
Except when he finally got to the mouth of the river, he found the newly built Fort Astoria, financed by American fur trader John Jacob Astor and his Pacific Fur Company.
When the Northwest Company was bought by the ultra powerful Hudson’s Bay Company, they decided to build their own fort on the river, Fort Walla Walla. For the most part, the traders behaved themselves.
From 1840, American immigrants started flooding into the area, most of them through Walla Walla. Naturally, this upset the area’s indigenous population and it soon became apparent that the competing claims of the Americans and British had to be worked out. Although the American population was much higher, the claims of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which had full backing of the British government over it’s territory, couldn’t be overlooked.
10 окт 2024
