Letter: Chinook Park is a reminder of colorful times

Published 8:40 am Monday, May 9, 2022

I want to throw in my metaphorical two bits in support of expanding Chinook Park into more than a day-use facility. That site is of historical significance because it is the remains of the highway from Chinook to Astoria in the 1908 to 1930 era of the Megler extension from Ilwaco of the legendary Clamshell Railway.

As you drive along from Chinook toward Fort Columbia next to the river if the tide is right you may see a few green rocks scattered atop the sand. Those stones are all that remains of this vital highway from a century ago.

Pull Quote

Next time you are driving into Chinook Park imagine it is 90 years ago and you are just about to cross a storm-tossed road with a steam train blowing its whistle to your left as you race it to the fort.

When I was a kid in the ‘60s we were off by two decades when we thought those stones were associated with the late 40s highway “improvement” that put in the Gile Straight stretch, buried the first step of Chinook school, and wiped out sidewalks through town.

That old road that started in Chinook Park and ran across the sands continued into Fort Columbia, then South next to the theater, and made a sharp left turn from the wharf whose few surviving pilings can still be seen pointing to Astoria. Then it became tricky: Those pilings on the mud flats that run across the east opening of the tunnel are the remainder of the steep and likely rickety trestle down to ground level. From there it connected to the road that is behind St. Mary’s Church rather than the present shore-hugging path.

Next time you are driving into Chinook Park imagine it is 90 years ago and you are just about to cross a storm-tossed road with a steam train blowing its whistle to your left as you race it to the fort.

Tell me that there couldn’t be some great interpretive installations reflecting this almost forgotten history.

BILL O’MEARA

Seattle