The New International Encyclopædia/Astoria

ASTO′RIA. A city, port of entry, and county seat of Clatsop County, Ore., in the northwestern part of the State, on the south bank of the Columbia River (Map: Oregon, B 3). It is on the Astoria and Columbia River Railroad, and has several steamship lines to home and foreign ports. The former difficulty of the Columbia River bar has been overcome by the construction of a jetty, affording a deep and wide channel, which admits the largest vessels. There are now about five miles of water-front within the city limits. Astoria is the centre of an extensive salmon-fishing and canning industry, one of the most important in the world, and contains iron works, can factories, lumber mills, and other industrial establishments. It controls, also, a large export trade in lumber, wheat, flour, etc. The United States custom house and post-office, and Saint Mary's Hospital (Roman Catholic) are among the more important features of the city. Astoria, founded as a fur-trading station in 1811 by John Jacob Astor, was the first settlement in the valley of the Columbia. In 1813 the English took possession, renamed it Fort Saint George, and held it until 1818, though until 1845 the Northwest Company, an English company of fur-traders, continued to occupy it. In 1876 it was chartered as a city. Population, in 1890, 6184; in 1900, 8381.

Consult Washington Irving, Astoria; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains Philadelphia, 1830).