TNT: Thursday Night Talks – The Last Interstate Ferry to Still Cross the Columbia River Jan 19 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm |FREE Going back nearly a century, ten different ferries have plied the waters between Cathlamet and Puget Island, Washington, and Westport, Oregon. Author Jim Aalberg explains the history of the last ferry still operating on the mighty Columbia River between Oregon and Washington.  Jim has dedicated a new appendix to the history of the ferry in his recently revised and expanded book, Westport Oregon Home of the Big Sticks and Gold Medal Salmon, now in its third printing. The Clatsop County Historical Society’s TNT lecture series is a free event at Fort…

The Great Coastal Gale of 2007 was a series of powerful Pacific storms that affected the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia between December 1, 2007 and December 3, 2007. This is a story of its impact on my wife and I and a great interview of what it was like for Craig and Dana Westin and Dana’s dad Paul See. Thought this would be of interest since this will be the fifteenth anniversary of the big storm. Happy Thanks giving all.

Over the last 4 years Richie Schroeder became a mentor and helped me get a much better understanding of much of the history on the Clatsop Plains. During this time he passed on copies of most of Barney Lucases records from his best friend Jimmy Lucas Barney’s son. He also allowed me to interview him on this history with several hours of video interviews. Below is one of those interviews where he speaks to how the 24 south lots on Surf Pines lower road ended up having to buy back their Ocean front property and how the building lines gradually went east. 3 minute interview with Richie Schroeder about the history of…

We will miss Richie who was the oldest person to have had a home in Surf Pines. Richie was only 6 years old when his Parents bought the home on the corner of Manion and Ocean in 1951 and became the first owner of a home in Surf Pines. He was a friend to all and loved this area so much. Below is his Obituary published in today 6 November 2022 obituary. RIP Richie. T

Yesterday November 3, 2022, Richie Schroeder passed away after a short illness. I met Richie back in the late 1997 when my wife Annie and I moved into Surf Pines. However, it was not until fall of 2018 that we happened to be both sitting at the bar at McMenamins that I finally got to know him better. We shared our love of local history, and I explained that I was working on a video piece about the 50thanniversary of Surf Pines becoming an association and the 70th anniversary of it being developed by Barney Lucas in 1949 for our annual association meeting in August 2019. He then told me he literally was…