Once upon a time... John Jacob Astor established the fur trading company that built Fort Astoria. The city was named after him, and was founded in 1811. Astoria is a beautiful city on the mighty Columbia River which flows into the Pacific Ocean, and there you also have Young's River and  Young's Bay. You can watch the ship traffic as they float by, see the tug boats charge the large ships to keep them heading in the right direction. River Otters play in the side streams, and you can buy fresh fish from the docks each day. Hallibut seems to be the family favorite, and they picked it up twice, once while here in Astoria. Fish from the docks sells for less than half of the retail store prices. The favorite way for cooking the fish is blackened, and then grilled over charcoal.
   
The Astoria Column was built in 1926. John Jacob Astor's great-grandson helped to finace the building of the Column, while the Great Northern Railroad paid for the balance of it. The story of Astoria is presented on the tower in what is called bas-relief etching in cement. This style was developed during the Italian Renaissance. It's really beautiful.


 
Here is a close up view of a small portion of the column, and a look upward to the top. 


We climbed the spiral staircase of 176 steps which led to the top where you can see the ships along the Columbia River, the bay, the Pacific. You can see the heavily wooded forest and the town nestled among the trees. You can easily see the Astoria Bridge. If you look closely you can see the Maritime Museum.



A climb back down, which is speedier than the climb up, leads you  back to the base of the sidewalk, where you see the bronze map of the area. If you look carefully, you will see where the column is marked on the map... it says You are Here, right above the "River" of Columbia River It looks like a line pointing to the raised hill portion, and that is where we were.


Off to the left and down a small path is a replica burial canue of Cheif Comcomly. He was a great Cheif of the Chinook nation, and was known by Lewis and Clark He was honored and respected by the early Astoria founders, and  those with the Fur Trading Company. 


Over to the right and back up the little path you come to the tiny gift shop that sells post cards, t-shirts, and wooded planes to throw off the top of the column. Beside it is a bench to sit and rest. The view is spectacular!


 If you look to the left of Andrew's picture, you can see a wood chip path that leads down the hill. The path is so steep that if you start to sort of jog down it, it can just about over take you. You have to be careful. Walking down just seems to time consuming and you just want to get down when you're at that angle! In thenext picture you can see a bette rview of the path, as well as the city of Astoria nestled in the trees.



This picture was taken while crossing the Astoria Bridge as we left. You can see the column up on the hill. I've added a white line to show our treck down from the column to town. It is not perfect, but it's the estimated way we went.



Along the way to town we walked through the forest on hiking trails. It's really beautiful, so green and lush. You can barely make out Joy and Elizabeth as they went down the steep trail ahead of me.



Once we were back in the "city" part of town, we passed by one of the historical houses in the area. It looks like a doll house. It was build by Martin Foard, a well-to-do merchant, who also co-owned Foard and Stokes, an early day Emporium in Astoria. The house was built in 1892. You can see some of the detail work in the second picture.


Here are a couple more houses, but I don't know anything about them.



And now on to Flavel House... my favorite!

Flavel House was built in 1885 in the Queen Anne style. It was the retirement home of Captain George Flavel.  Flavel mapped the Columbia River sand bars, and was granted a piloting license to take ships through the area. While others had been granted the same piloting license before, because of his reputation as a fearless navigator and shrewd business man that allowed him to monopolize ship piloting business of the area. He could charge $10 per foot if the vessel not exceeding 12 feet of draught water, $11 oer foot for those over 12 and up to 15 feet of draught water, and $12 per foot for all vessels drawing over 15 feet of draught water.    He became a well-to-do business man. He expanded his docks, invested in ships, and even built a hotel. When this house was built, it cost $36,000. When the Captain died, he was worth around $496,000. I might have mentioned a higher number before, but this is the correct figure.

The Flavel House was appreciated for it's beauty by others settlers in Astoria. Polly McKean Bell, an early pioneer of Astoria wrote, "There it stood stately and ornate with tall bay windows, porches, handsome doors and a tall abd beautiful toweron the northeast corner. This large Victorian mansion, which dominated the lower residential part of Astoria, had for me the quality of a fairy story castle. Dignified and spacious, it was almost awesome in its air of elegance." The house was designed by German architect, Carl Leick. 



Look at the fence... it is a new replica like the original. I'll include a picture of the house int he 1800's for you to see.


They way it was after it's completion in the late 1800's.


The Captain was a border at the house of Mary's parents. When she came back from seminary, at the age of 14, she was informed that she would be taking up "household" duties. This meant she was to marry the Captain, which she did, at the young age of 14.

Mary Flavel                                                                                                           Their daughers, Nellie and Katie reading in the garden
                           

The Flavel sisters never married, but their brother did. The girls never found anyone that "interested them enough," Their brother, George,  never lived in the house, being already married and in his own home. Although the girls were highly sought after and often were accompanied by men to various functions, they remained single. Katie Flavel wrote, "Yesterday evening the M N's invited Nellie and me to spend the evening with them, as they were going to have some young men callers one of whom is considered a 'great catch,'  I of course had to sing for them. I must say I found them more agreeable than I expected for as a rule I detest society men and 'great catches.'"  The girls liked to study, and spoke in several languages. They would often read books in German to each other or to their mother. Katie was a gifted singer, Nellie a gifted pianist and they often played and sang at various concert halls, churches In Astoira, San Francisco, and Paris. The two sisters and their Mother were all in San Francisco when the great earthquake and fire struck on April 18, 1906. They were able to get their trunks (someone got them for them) out of the hotel, before it was destroyed in order to create a buffer to stop the spread of the fire.

Their brother had one son, who was sickly and they feared he would not live. He did survie and went on to have his own daughter, Patricia Flavel. After Nellie died on a visit with Patricia, she inherited the house, and later donated it to the city. The great grandchildren of Captain Flavel and his wife survive today and carry on the family traditions.

Detail work on the house is lovely. I did not do a good job capturing it in the photogrpahs, but you might be able to see some.The color is a bit off in the pics. The house was once painted all white.
 

The grounds were lovely featuring a rose garden, flowers all along the house, and a fish pond. The original grounds had various fruit trees, pear, apricot, and plum. They did have raspberry bushes,but they had to be removed which pained  Mary. Someone moved them into their garden for them. :-)  They liked the trees big and full. They had a gardener who kept the grounds for them.
     
This shows the back view of the house and part of the rose garden...



This is the Carriage House. The Daily Morning Astorian reported, "Captain George Flavel is finishing what, when complete, will be one of the finest and handsomest stables and carriage houses in the state." They don't know if the same architect designed it or if it came from a pattern book. The style is very different from the house. It is mostly "Stick" in style.


This is Mary's parents home which sits just across the street from Flavel House.This is not the house that was used as a boarding house where the Captain met Mary. That house was on the docks of the city at Astor and Benton Streets. That was built first, and then this house.

(Conrad)Boelling House, built in 1863: note the steep angle of the hill as we walked back....


Back in the bus...