Astoria Tower

Astoria tower

ASTORIA COLUMN

The Astoria Column, in a clearing atop Astoria, Oregon's highest hill, draws an ?Oh, Wow!? from most visitors with its spectacular views of the city and its surrounding forest, mountains, rivers, bay and ocean. The Column, built in 1926 for $32,550, is 125 feet high and has 164 steps spiraling to the top. While the view is best from the column's summit it's also pretty impressive from the surrounding park.

Patterned after the Trajan Column in Rome, the Astoria Column is the world's only large piece of memorial architecture made of reinforced concrete with a pictorial frieze in sgraffito technique. The column artwork illustrates the discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Robert Gray in 1792, the establishment of American claims to the Northwest Territory, the winning of the west and the arrival of the Great Northern Railway.


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After nearly 70 years of exposure to coastal weather and salt air, time had begun to take its toll on the Astoria Column's unique artwork. By 1995, many of the pictures had deteriorated nearly to the point of invisibility. But the Friends of the Astoria Column and the Astoria community worked together to restore and preserve the artistic character of the column. Internationally renowned experts spent six months cleaning, reconstructing and restoring the images to their original luster and their completed work was unveiled in November, 1997.


Something else that is so neat about this tower, is the Airplanes. The concession stand sells balsa wood airplanes for .50 and then you can fly them off the top off the tower. Since it is 164 steps up there, I personally did NOT go up, but Barb did. She has been there many times before, and had a stash of airplanes at home to fly . So she flew it down to me and I retrieved it. She then put our names and the date on the plane and took it back home to fly again.

After reading all the names on the tiles around the tower, and then history of it, I have decided that I will have to go back again and again during this bicentennial of Lewis and Clark Expedition, and live even more history. If you are interested go here... www.oldoregon.com And learn all about the celebration and the life around Astoria. It is AWESOME!