Coast Community Radio’s own Joanne Rideout

Coast Community Radio’s own Joanne Rideout to make a rare appearance at the Cannon Beach History Center & Museum on Wednesday May 9th at 7 p.m. Rideout will be sharing photos and stories from time spent at sea aboard a bulk carrier in 2010.

Prior to moving to the coast Rideout lived in the desert of Southwest on Navajo and Hopi Reservations. She worked as an editor of the Hopi Tribe’s local newspaper, she also covered news for the Associated Press. Rideout also spent time as a freelance journalist contributing to many national publications, such as the Environmental Magazine, Family Circle, and Oxygen Magazine.

This is a FREE lecture and open to the public.

Lecture begins at 7 p.m. May 9th.

Earth Day Celebration with Author & Environmentalist Tara Rae Miner

 

 

The Cannon Beach History Center & Museum is excited to announce that author Tara Rae Miner has agreed to appear at the museum on April 22nd to celebrate Earth Day with us. Miner grew up in a small logging town here in the Pacific Northwest. She received her Masters degree in science from the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana. Miner is an accredited author and editor. Work she edited at Orion Magazine received the Pushcart Prize. She has appeared on environmental and journalism panels, and acted as a judge for the annual Reed Environmental Writing Award. Miner has also written as a freelance journalist for many national publications. Her concern about our impact on the planet and for her daughter’s healthy inspired her to write her latest book Your Green Abode.

 

Miner will inform attendees of different ways of creating a more sustainable home and lifestyle.

This is a FREE event and open to the public.

 

Refreshments will be available.

 

Lodging has been provided by the Surfsand Resort .

 

The Environmental Movement: A Celebration

The Environmental Movement: A Celebration

 

With the upcoming Earth Day celebrations, it is impossible not to reflect on what it means to protect the environment and how this became so important to our country.  America’s love and wonderment of the environment began in the late 1800’s. Just as people were flocking to the beautiful shores of Cannon Beach, societies, like the Audubon Society began. In 1876 a special agent of the Department of Agriculture was appointed, this later became the U.S. Forest Service.

Around this time, John Muir founded the Sierra Club. Muir was an instrumental figure in the environmental movement, his activism helped save the Yosemite Valley and the Sequoia National Park. Another inspirational naturalist was Gifford Pinchot, who coined the term conservation ethic. He was the head of the U.S. Forest Service during the early 1900’s. Pinchot was a passionate conservationist who spent much of his career overhauling the management of the forests throughout the United States. His name became synonymous with Theodore Roosevelt, two worked together implementing policies and programs for the National Forest Service.

Rachel Carson is arguably one of the most influential contemporary environmentalists. In fact she is considered the founder of the contemporary environmental movement. Carson wrote many books throughout her career at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, but it was the book that she published in 1964 that had an overwhelming affect on Americans. This text was entitled Silent Spring and was a culmination of observations and research conducted throughout her career on the negative impact synthetic pesticides, specifically the pesticide DDT. This book reflected a growing concern among American about the state of our environment. Carson received a bestselling author award, was the recipient of the Burroughs Medal, and the National Book Award for Non Fiction.

Carson’s work and her staunch pursuit of the ethical treatment of our natural world inspired senators like Gaylord Nelson to institute policies and laws to protect the environment. Nelson is the founder of the Earth Day celebration, and was a vital proponent of many environmental protection acts as well as parks programs. Nelson fought to protect the environment through Wilderness Act, Clean Air and Water Acts. He felt that the protection and preservation of our environment should be bedrock policies.

Nelson sat alongside Americans, in 1969, as they watched the results of the Santa Barbara oil spill occur. This spill became one of the largest of the time; in 2010 it was still considered the third largest oil spill in the world. Over a ten-day period over 100,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the Santa Barbara Channel and washed up along the shoreline. The American public was outraged by the images of seals, and other marine mammals floundering in a dark sludge. This event spurred the National Environmental Policy Act, which Nelson was a sponsor of. Just a year later Nelson founded Earth Day, a day our nation dedicated to raise environmental awareness.

Though the environmental movement began over 100 years ago, it has grown and is still instrumental in preserving and protecting our natural resources for posterity.  Earth Day is a big event in Cannon Beach, with a full 12 days of celebration that begins with welcoming the Puffins back to Haystack Rock.  Every year the Tufted-Puffins (that inhabit Haystack Rock) return to spend the summer on our beautiful beaches.

 

 

 

Robert Richter Live in Concert

The Cannon Beach History Center & Museum is proud to present Robert Richter on Saturday March 31st.  Richter is a well known singer and songwriter that enjoys story telling.  Richter will be performing with a guitar and a slide guitar in honor of Woody Guthrie.  Guthrie would have been 100 in 2012 and Richter would like to celebrate with concert goers.  Richter will bring a blend of different genres, from Celtic music to rock and blues.

 

“Robert Richter is a charismatic entertainer that gives his all every time he performs and is a stellar musician.”  Morry Feldman, WQED-FM Pittsburgh, PA.

The concert will begin at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets are $7 Adults and $2 Children, all proceeds help to support acoustic events, lectures, exhibits, and field trip programs at the History Center.

The Long Road to Cannon Beach

Downtown Cannon Beach in 1910

My favorite story of Cannon Beach is the journey, how did people get here, why did they come here, why do they continue to come here?

For some, the journey began with the long road from Portland (luckily now only a two-hour commute). Travelers would journey along the Columbia River in riverboats, then by train, buggy, and eventually by motorcar. Portland was a booming industrial city tied to small coastal communities by a loose transportation system. The journey to the coast began with riverboats that plowed the Columbia from Astoria to Portland, and back.

The Columbia River, especially the mouth of the Columbia was and is one of the most dangerous river mouths in the world. In fact the mouth of the Columbia was so dangerous that the first ship sent to map it, The Peacock, crashed upon a spit, now called the Peacock spit. Some 2,000 ships and over 700 lives have been lost at the mouth of the Columbia River. The famed U.S.S. Shark was one of the ships claimed by the Columbia River Mouth. In 1846 the U.S.S. Shark was torn asunder by the competing tides of the mouth and lost several cannons to the Pacific.

Despite the dangers of the mouth, many journeyed along the Columbia to Astoria, and along the shore by train. The train was extended to Seaside in 1890. Just a year later, in 1891 James P. Austin built the Austin House that was both a hotel and a post office. Austin named the post office after a rumor he’d heard of cannons washing ashore there. The cannon that Cannon Beach is named for was discovered in 1898, after Austin had spent his life at the beach searching for it. It was his wife who discovered the cannon and had it pulled from the shoreline.

Elk Creek Hotel

The long road to Cannon Beach was lined with a 111 stomach-churning curves. In 1892 the Elk Creek Hotel was constructed to welcome visitors to Elk Creek, Ore., but the road was still a winding muddy mess. In 1904 a new road with fewer curves was constructed bringing even more people to the beautiful town of Elk Creek. The road underwent several reconstructions before it was finally straightened out, and rid of the 111 curves.

More visitors meant more hotels, and the Hotel Bill was constructed in 1904, the Warren Hotel in 1911, followed by the Ecola Inn in 1913.

Elk Creek was a beautiful place for folk to sojourn from city life. They spent hours lounging in front of the Warren Hotel fire, walking the beach, and enjoying the wildlife that wandered through the heart of town. The popularity of Elk Creek grew. In 1922 the citizens of Elk Creek voted for a new more historical name, Cannon Beach. In 1955 the town of Cannon Beach voted to become the City of Cannon Beach and March 6, 1957 marks the incorporation of Cannon Beach.

Though the name of our beloved town has shifted, the spirit of the town and the ever-thrumming sea has remained constant.

Downtown Cannon Beach in the 1940's

Lauren Sheehan in Concert!

Back by popular demand!  Nationally acclaimed folk artist and blues musician Lauren Sheehan returns to the History Center with special guest Bill Uhlig.  Sheehan will be celebrating her recent addition to the Library of Congress’s American FolkLife Collection.

Lauren Sheehan is a well known Pacific Northwest vocal performer, famous for her shape shifting ability to cover anything from Memphis Blues to Old Country and Folk with an authentic flair.  She has toured throughout the United States, as well as through Ireland and has released several successful albums.  Sheehan is not only an acclaimed vocalist but is an aficionado with the guitar, banjo, and fiddle.

“She is a true entertainer, weaving the stories and history of the music into her performance and connecting with her audience on a personal level.” (Gray Eubank, Director, Portland Christmas Revels).

For More Information Visit her Website: www.laurensheehanmusic.com

Cannon Beach: Starting from the the 1700 Tsunami to Today

Natural History Lecture Starts at the Year 1700

The Cannon Beach History Center Presents a fascinating lecture called, “The Natural History of Cannon Beach: Starting from the 1700 Tsunami to Today”.

The lecture will be given by Jim Sayce, Marine Biologist and Vice President of the Washington State Historical Society.

Mr. Sayce will be discussing the natural history of Cannon Beach and surrounding area for the last 300 years – From the differences of the trees and wildlife to the changes of the land itself, and whether the alterations have been manmade or by mother nature.

This lecture is FREE and open to the public.

Jim Sayce – ‘The Natural History of Cannon Beach form 1700 to Today’
November 9th, at 6:30 pm
Cannon Beach History Center & Museum
1387 S. Spruce (corner of Sunset and Spruce) in Cannon Beach
503-436-9301
www.cbhistory.com

Sandcastle Day, A Day of Fun for All!

Every June — in rain, shine, or near gale winds — teams of eager sculptors have filled the beaches in front of Haystack Rock to create their own sandy ephemera.  In a race against time and tide, many residents can attest to seeing the bobbing lights of teams building before the sun has even risen.  Sandcastle Day is an event as unique and as synonymous with the town as the striking monolith towards which it points. 

The first time that organized “sand-castling” began to take shape was just after the 1964 Tsunami that inundated the coastline.  The devastation caused by the tsunami affectedCannonBeachin a number of ways.  The town experienced one of the lowest tides in historic times, in fact the tide was so low that local youth were able to enter the infamous cave of Haystack Rock.  At around this time CannonBeach also became disconnected from Highway 101 due to the construction of a by-pass.  This was just another obstacle that made the trip to Cannon Beach that much more difficult.  Many would admit that the life-blood of Cannon Beach has been tourism, so when tourism dropped significantly, concerned citizens pulled on their thinking caps to try to figure out an event that would cheer up residents and make it worth the trouble to visit again.

Three intrepid women, Margaret Atherton, Billie Grant and Marion Crowell created a day devoted to family fun at the beach.  They christened it: Sandcastle Day.  Since then it has only grown in size and popularity as the years have passed, bringing a few thousand participants nearer to tens of thousands.  The plan to bring tourism back to Cannon Beach was successful and then some, although there were those who thought it too successful. 

In 1980 the Sandcastle Day Contest became a topic of heated debate.  A select few felt that it had become too “commercialized” and brought more people than our small town could take.  Many others, such as founding member Marion Crowell, felt that Sandcastle Day was simply a fun event and should continue.  And indeed it has. This is one of a few events along the coast that can be enjoyed as thoroughly by locals as by people from around the world. Sandcastle Day is an event born of whimsy that many look forward to each year.

The Mystery of Sacagawea

Almost all Northwesterners have heard of Sacagawea. Not being an Oregon native myself, I imagine elementary school children in the Northwest spending a great deal of time studying the Lewis and Clark Expedition and all the members of the Corps who helped make the journey successful, especially minorities like Sacagawea and York.

But what do we really know about the amazing Native woman who guided the Corps of Discovery across the West? There are several disputed facts in Sacagawea’s story, but perhaps one of the most thrilling controversies surrounding this inspiring woman is not an argument over her life accomplishments, but rather a disagreement over when and how she died. Now, on the supposed 127 anniversary of her death, it is time to revisit this controversy.

Sacagawea helped to lead the Lewis and Clark Expedition across the West

Up until the publishing of Grace Raymond Hebard’s book Sacajawea in 1933, the commonly accepted date of Sacagawea’s death was December 20, 1812. The book, and several facts therein, sparked the great debate regarding the Shoshone Native’s demise.

What we know for sure is that an 1811 journal entry of Henry Breckenridge, a fur dealer at Fort Manuel, indicated that Sacagawea was living at the fort in Missouri with her husband Touissant Charbonneau, a member of the Corps and a French-Canadian explorer and trader.

We also know that on December 20, 1812, another trapper, John Luttig, recorded a journal entry that states, “This evening the Wife of Charbonneau a Snake Squaw, died of a putrid fever she was good and the best woman in the fort, aged about 25 years. She left a fine infant girl.”

William Clark’s records also indicate that Sacagawea’s life ended early on. In a list of Expedition members compiled between 1825 and 1828 Clark writes: “Se-car-ja-we-au Dead.”

According to the Orphan’s Court Records of St. Louis, Missouri, Clark also adopted Sacagawea’s two children in August of 1813, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau and Lizette Charbonneau. At that time, in order to allow adoption, both parents of a child had to be confirmed dead in court.

Charbonneau supposedly died when Natives attacked Fort Manuel in 1813, killing 15 men.

Case closed? Not entirely. Charbonneau was a known polygamist, taking several “squaw” wives. This is where the dispute begins.

Hebard and several others propose that since Luttig doesn’t name Charbonneau’s wife in the journal entry, we cannot be sure if that wife was, in fact, Sacagawea.

Hebard suggests that Sacagawea returned to live with the Shoshone people in Wyoming, and lived a long, happy life, dying in April of 1884, which would mean that this month would mark the 127 anniversary of her death.

Grace Hebard was an author and Wyoming historian whose work helped lead to the Sacagawea controversy

A Shoshone oral history corroborates this fact, and a burial plot marker on the Shoshone Wind River Reservation in Wyoming suggests the date of death above.

Next, minister Rev. John Roberts recalled in 1907 that he buried a Native woman on the Wind River Reservation. Apparently, he had been told that this woman was Sacagawea.

To spite this burial marker and oral history evidence, it is often suggested that Hebard, a Wyoming historian and author, romanticized the history of the state, and embellished the truth. Unfortunately for Hebard, Rev. John Roberts was quoted in 1945 indicating his doubt that the woman he buried was Sacagawea.

“All I know is I buried an old Indian woman,” he said. “The historian [Grace Raymond Hebard] told me she was Sacajawea.”

Another factor that might discredit Hebard is that the Shoshone tribe never lived in Wyoming during Sacagawea’s life, but actually inhabited Montana and Idaho. However, the reservations established for the Shoshone tribe after the Indian Removal Act were located in parts of Wyoming, and the Shoshone oral tradition suggests that Sacagawea lived a long life, after returning to live with her people.

It is difficult to discredit Hebard’s theory fully, both because of the oral history evidence that backs up Sacagawea’s death in 1884, and because not much is written about the Native woman’s life after the Corps of Discovery.

Little is known about her life after the Expedition took place, especially since her ethnic identity and gender made her life of little consequence to white or Native society in the early 1800s.

I guess we will never know when Sacagawea actually died, but I like to believe that Hebard’s story is true. It is, at least, a rosier picture of the Native woman’s life, especially after such a rough beginning.

Sacagawea was purportedly kidnapped and forced to marry Charbonneau at a very young age, and when he was hired on with the Corps of Discovery in the early 1800s, she was expected to help the Corps navigate the West, while pregnant with Charbonneau’s son.

The idea that this strong Native woman lived a fulfilled life with her people, however romanticized this idea might be, rather than dying from fever at 25, is the controversial story I choose to accept.

Oregon Coast Tsunami Stories

Check out our article that was recently printed in the CB Gazette on the 1964 tsunami. If you want more information or would like to see our archive of pictures of the 1964 disaster, stop by the History Center any day except Tuesday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Reflections on the Past: the Tsunami of 1964

“I was playing poker over at Frank Hammond’s house. There were six of us. The phone rang and one of the men got up and answered the phone. ‘They said there’s a tidal wave coming,’ he said. We all ignored it, because we heard that every winter, that there were some big waves coming. It wasn’t unusual to hear that. Then he got another phone call, and there was a big bet on the table. . . about fifteen dollars. . .He hung up the phone real fast, put on his coat, and headed for the door. We said, ‘Where are you going?’ He says, ‘The last wave broke over, you know that tree in my driveway. . .the last wave broke over the top of that tree.’”

That tree was 30 feet tall.

The Cannon Beach History Center recorded Bill Steidel’s story of the tsunami of 1964 in a 1995 oral history, and over 15 of the center’s 140 oral histories mention the event in some way. The tsunami was triggered by a 9.2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Alaska, and waves as high as 27 feet hit the Pacific Northwest coastline.

Tsunami waves from inside the Webb Scenic Surf

Nearly 50 years later, after the recent tsunami warning and my very first evacuation, I thought it would be fitting to take a look back at what Cannon Beach residents had to say about the March 27, 1964, “tidal wave,” a reminder that the ocean in our backyard might, at any time, decide to invite itself in.

After the second phone call Steidel mentions, the men couldn’t ignore the incoming water.

“We all hit the door at the same time,” Steidel said. “And it was just like a Laurel and Hardy picture, guys trying to get out of the room, and then it was repeated, because all the guys were parked in Frank Hammond’s parking lot and they all tried to drive their cars out of the parking lot at the same time, and they couldn’t get out. It was a hell of a mess.”

Treva Haskell’s husband was one of those men. He hurried home to find his wife wondering what to do about the storm.

“In the evening, I watched the 11 o’clock news, and they said a tidal wave, that they called it then, might hit Washington and California,” Haskell said. “They didn’t mention Oregon, so I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention until I looked out the window and saw a wave breaking over the bulkhead. . . It splashed up over the edge and I thought that was awfully high tide with no storm.”

Margaret Sroufe and her husband had an up close and personal view of the tidal wave as it flushed up Ecola Creek. Her house was on the west side of Elm Street in the north end of town.

“I was the civil defense person for the north side of the creek,” Sroufe said. “If there was a problem, I was supposed to notify the residents of the area.”

She called the Seaside police when she heard about the wave on the news, but was told that until the Coast Guard recommended what needed to be done, no alerts for evacuation would be given, in case of panic. Hearing this news, Sroufe and her husband began to get ready for bed.

“I went to turn the television volume down, and I looked out the window and I saw all these green and blue flashing lights. It was when the bridge went out and broke the power lines,” she said. “And here came this water, just up, not in like a wave, just raising up. We went out on the porch and watched the water come up.”

Flooding of Main Street in the 1964 tsunami

Standing on her porch, Sroufe had a unique view of the main damage that would be done to Cannon Beach during the tsunami.

“There was a house down on the creek . . . and there was a little duplex, and the duplex started to move. . . and it hit the telephone pole, and went around the telephone pole, and it ended way back up in the pasture. And the bridge lifted up and moved on back into the pasture. It came right up to the edge of our driveway. We just stood there with our arms around each other on the porch watching the water come up,” Sroufe said. “There was a little girl who lived across the street who had been babysitting who had just walked home across the bridge. She was the last one who crossed.”

Steidel was the first to discover that the bridge was out the hard way, when trying to cross it, coming home from the poker game.

“The bridge was gone,” he said. “My family was on the other side, and I had to get over there. There was water all around me, and then a house went by. The house went over into the meadow and settled down, looked like someone had built it there. Hardly disturbed anything in the house. Somebody said all it moved was a coffee pot about a foot on the counter.”

Steidel then thought about using an old logging route to get home, but as he was on his way to the alternate route, he intercepted several cars on their way to the bridge. He stopped his vehicle and blocked their path.

“‘Get out of my way!’ one man said to me. ‘Well, I’ll get out of your way,’ I said, ‘but you’re not going that way because the bridge is gone.’ ‘Gone?’ the man said. ‘Yes! Gone!’ I told him.”

In addition to the bridge being swept away, many homes on the north side of Ecola were besieged with water.

“The north side of the creek was devastated,” Sroufe said. “There was a campground where the Les Shirley park is today. There was one trailer there. There was one woman in that little trailer, and she got out, but the trailer was washed out, and all the houses that were close to the creek were just inundated.”

When Steidel reached home after taking the alternate logging road, he found his wife and son in a house filled with logs and foam.

Aside from the bridge and the homes on the north side of Ecola, not much else had been affected. Of course, a fair amount of debris was scattered about town and water still sat in the streets.

Tsunami dammage from the air. Note the pieces of bridge and the small white house in the background.

“There were logs and all kinds of things right down Hemlock,” Haskell said.

What saved the rest of the town, Sroufe said, was the wave’s path up Ecola Creek.

“There really wasn’t much damage in the town. The water came up all around what was Les Ordway’s service station, which is that parking area today [across from Whale Park], but it didn’t go down through the rest of the town because it came right up the creek,” Sroufe said. “It wasn’t a wave that came up over the town like tidal waves do, it just followed the easiest way it could go, up the creek.”

Although there was little damage and no casualties related to the 1964 in Cannon Beach, in Newport, the McKenzie family lost three of their children to the brutal force of the wave.

“The McKenzies were camping out at Beverly Beach State Park . . . when the tidal wave struck while they were in their sleeping bags,” The Oregon Journal reported on March 30, 1964. “When the wave receded, the McKenzies found their four children – Ricky, 6, Louise, 8, Bobby,7, and Tammy 3 – had been swept to sea. Ricky’s body was found.”

So, while no damage came from Friday morning’s tsunami scare, looking to the past is all that is necessary to understand how violent the ocean can be.

To learn more about the 1964 tsunami or to browse archives or photos of the event, stop by the History Center Wednesday through Monday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.