Astoria Column

Built in 1926. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

From the record

“The Astoria Column is a tower in the northwest United States, overlooking the mouth of the Columbia River on Coxcomb Hill in Astoria, Oregon. Built in 1926, the concrete and steel structure is part of a 30-acre (12 ha) city park called Astor Park.”
Wikipedia article Astoria Column, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 56 National Register listings published here for Clatsop County · listed in 1974 · category: Structure · built in 1926.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
Address. Coxcomb Hill, Astoria, 97103
When was it listed? May 1974
Category. structure
Census division. Astoria
When was it built? 1926
National Register reference number. 74001681 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

83 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 83 fires within 5 miles of Astoria Column between 1992 and 2019, burning about 8 acres in total. 3 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Recreation and ceremony	23
Debris and open burning	21
Misuse of fire by a minor	12
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Smoking	3
Fireworks	3
Natural	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Other causes	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2007	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Astoria District	JACK CREEK
6 September 2012	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Oregon Department of Forestry Salem Headquarters	MITSCHER RD.
5 September 2014	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Oregon Department of Forestry Salem Headquarters	CUTTER
30 September 2009	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Astoria District	FLORENCE #033
3 September 2012	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Oregon Department of Forestry Salem Headquarters	KLASKANIE TRAIL
29 September 2001	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Astoria District	TUCKER FIRE
24 September 1998	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Astoria District	FLORENCE ST.
22 September 2000	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Astoria District	WILLIAMSPORT 2

Every fire recorded in Clatsop County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 20 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 20 workings within 5 miles of Astoria Column: 12 past producers, 5 producers, 2 occurrences, 1 unknown. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Clay, Stone, Dimension. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Endicott Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Sunset Quarry & Mill	Stone, Dimension	Unknown
Unnamed Pit	Flagstone	Producer
Astoria Landfill	Stone	Past Producer
Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
Unnamed Pit	Stone	Producer
Astor House, Inc.	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Astor House,Inc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Astoria Landfille	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Clatsop County

Storms near this property

3 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Astoria, the town this property stands in, in 3 storm reports between 2004 and 2016: 1 lightning, 1 heavy rain, 1 thunderstorm wind. The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
December 2004	Lightning	Astoria	1 hurt	no account filed
October 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Astoria	-	Strong thunderstorms produced gusts up to 58 mph, recorded at the ASOS at the Astoria Airport.
December 2007	Heavy Rain	Astoria	-	Storm total precipitation was 3.94 inches, before the airport lost power.

Every storm recorded in Clatsop County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Robert Rensselaer Bartlett House	0.5 miles	1986
Capt. J. H. D. Gray House	0.5 miles	1984
Martin Foard House	0.5 miles	1986
Albert W. Ferguson House	0.5 miles	1984
Noonan-Norblad House	0.5 miles	1988
John N. Griffin House	0.5 miles	1984

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 74001681 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Clatsop County	All 56 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.