Heritage Museum

Some might prefer the word colorful, but the good folks of Astoria, Oregon, don’t mind if the word seedy comes up in a description of their town’s history. The Clatsop County Historical Society even says so on its website. In promoting an exhibit at the Heritage Museum entitled Vice and Virtue in Clatsop County: 1890 to Prohibition, the site points to a time “in Astoria's seedy past when the town was known along the West Coast for its saloons and brothels.” The exhibit contains a partly reconstructed saloon. The museum, built in 1904, is housed in a beautiful neoclassical building that was once the town’s city hall. The building has also had previous incarnations as a library, maritime museum, and USO club for World War II servicemen. The museum traces the town’s history of logging and fishing along the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Displays feature natural history, geology, Indian artifacts, early immigrants and settlers, important maritime events and art history.