Heritage Trails: Astoria and Fort Stevens, Oregon

In honor of my grandparents' 74th wedding anniversary today (they are 94 and almost 96!), here's a report from a recent visit to their old stomping grounds in Oregon. My grandfather joined the army after graduating from college in 1941, and reported for duty in Fort Stevens, Oregon on December 7, 1941: an auspicious day. When my grandmother, his college sweetheart, came out from Utah to visit him there in June 1942, they climbed the Astoria Column together. 

Astoria Column

Astoria Column view

This marks the location of Lewis & Clark's expedition reaching the Pacific and completing their continental journey, and has an amazing coastal view of the Columbia River. Nowadays, it's also popular to fly balsa planes purchased from the visitor center from the top. It's a 164 stair climb, and at the top my grandfather proposed marriage. He said, "See the ocean--see how far you can see. We know there is something beyond the horizon but we don't know what it is. But we can see that far, and that's the way that it is for us right now. We can just see that far, so let's be together." She accepted his ring, and returned to Oregon the next month with her family to marry him. This took place in the Post Chapel of Fort Stevens (they were later sealed in the Logan Temple). The Colonel's wife hosted a rehearsal tea for the bridal party the day before the wedding, and it was a happy event in the midst of an uncertain time.

view from Astoria Column

the wedding caisson on July 18, 1942

Fort Stevens is not far, a drive of twenty minutes from Astoria. It is now maintained as a state park, and many of the original military buildings are gone. There's a Visitor's Center explaining various war installations and purposes, and we took a tour in an army jeep to see the old batteries, rifle embankments, and so on. This is the only location of an enemy attack on the continental United States since the War of 1812, when Japanese submarines bombarded the coast on June 21, 1942.

Fort Stevens Visitor's Center

artillery training, which my grandfather did

the jeep tour

embankment

battery

rifle range

site of officer barracks

viewing the chapel location in the visitor's center model

the chapel location on grounds

Nearby attractions also include a coastal shipwreck and a Lewis & Clark National Historic Park.

the wreck of the Peter Iredale from 1906

Happy anniversary to the my grandparents, whose devotion to each other and their faith in their three-quarters of a century long marriage has inspired their posterity, and whose fruitful legacy includes five children, eighteen grandchildren, fifty great-grandchildren, and one great-great-granddaughter.