Astoria & the Columbia River Maritime Heritage

A 125-foot painted column atop Coxcomb Hill, the Astoria Column spirals through Northwest history from the Ice Age to the first transcontinental expedition in mosaic narrative reliefs. The climb to the top delivers panoramic views across the Columbia River, Young's Bay, and four states — Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana visible on clear days.

A collection of restored firefighting equipment spanning 1877 through 1961 in a former fire station on the west end of Astoria's Uppertown neighborhood — the hand-drawn hose carts, steam-powered pumpers, and early motorized engines document the evolution of urban fire suppression in a coastal timber city repeatedly threatened by catastrophic fire. The 1922 Astoria fire, which destroyed 32 blocks of downtown, is the collection's historical anchor.

The Clatsop County Historical Society's collection occupies the 1904 City Hall — the county's oldest institution, with exhibits covering the fur trade era, the cannery boom, and the Finnish and Scandinavian immigrant communities that built Astoria's fishing industry. The cannery artifacts, the Native basketry collection, and the photographs of the 1922 fire that destroyed 32 blocks of Astoria are the collection's anchors.

Astoria's flagship craft brewery in a 1924 building on the original site of Fort George — the American trading post established by John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company in 1811. The brewing program is extensive and ambitious: 50+ annual releases, a wild fermentation program, and the Vortex IPA that has defined the house style since 2007. The upstairs pub has river views.

The Corps of Discovery spent 106 miserable rainy days at this spot from December 1805 through March 1806 — a 50-foot-square log stockade near the Columbia's mouth where 33 people lived in two rows of rooms, tanning hides, making salt at the coast, and preparing for the 2,400-mile return journey. The full-scale reconstruction occupies the original site; the Netul River Trail connects to the estuary where the Corps launched their return canoes.

Fort Stevens is the only military installation in the continental United States to be fired upon by a foreign enemy since the War of 1812 — a Japanese submarine shelled the fort in June 1942. The gun batteries and bunkers are open for exploration; the British four-masted bark Peter Iredale, wrecked on the beach in 1906, has reduced to a skeletal iron hull visible at low tide.

The Corps of Discovery's southernmost encampment — a small clearing in present-day Seaside where five men spent January and February 1806 boiling 1,400 gallons of seawater to produce 20 gallons of salt for the return journey. The reconstructed salt cairns mark the site; the surrounding Seaside Promenade preserves the beach setting.

Oregon's oldest aquarium, opened in 1937 on the Promenade above the beach — 50-odd species in 24 tanks, with harbor seals in the main pool that have been part of the institution since 1931. Modest and unpretentious; the seal feeding at regular intervals has been the town's signature attraction for 90 years.

The 1884 convention center building repurposed as a brewpub — the oldest structure in Seaside, now housing a production brewery and taproom that serves the Promenade crowd with house ales and a menu of Pacific Northwest pub standards. The Seaside Stout and the Cascade IPA are the house anchors.