 |
Building on Astoria's History |
People who worked in this building a century ago must have paused to remark on the Columbia River currents as we do today. The birds must have been even more plentiful in 1879, when Marshall J. Kinney started this cannery and was soon followed by dozens of others up and down Astoria's waterfront. |
It was a bustling place during a salmon run. A sailing gillnet boat would bring its catch to the cannery, which lowered a large box to be filled. Once the box was hoisted to the cannery deck, the fish were on their way to being shipped worldwide. |
Area canneries formed the Columbia River Packers Association in 1899, with the Kinney cannery as one of the principal packing houses. In the 1920s and the 1930s the Association started opening canneries in Alaska and the Kinney cannery was relegated to a role as a warehouse, receiving station and machine shop. |
Although the heyday for salmon fishing on the Columbia River ended in the 1920s, the industry remained a vital part of life and work on the Columbia River for many decades. |
In 1954, the Cargo Ship Joseph Feuer. outbound with a cargo of 8,000 tons of grain, crashed into the building, part of which was never rebuilt. |
The Columbia River Packers Association became BumbleBee Seafoods in 1961 and merged with Castle & Cook of Honolulu in 1964. When Castle & Cook consolidated to San Francisco in 1980, the building fell silent. A long and colorful era ended. |
Four generations of Gunderson family members fished the River for salmon, beginning at the turn of the century. From a Cafe window vantage point, look across the vast Columbia to the Washington shores and imagine Great Grandpa Ole Gunderson leaving his home, tucked into the North Shore hillside, to fish in the strong river tides for abundant Chinooks and Silvers. Although motorized gillnets eventually replaced the sailing vessels of the 1800s, the knowledge and skills necessary to fish the river changed very little and were passed on from father to child. Ole's boys followed in the tradition, including Grandpa Bill. Grandpa Bill passed his fishing skills to his only son Bill Jr., father of the Cannery Cafe's proprietor, Dana Gunderson, and Bill Jr. shared his craft with son Bill III and Dana. |
The portion of the building now housing the Cannery Cafe was saved by No 10 Sixth Street Ltd. from what seemed inevitable destruction |
In the restaurant, original materials were used as much as possible. The fir floors, for example, were stripped of old linoleum. The windows in the conference room were found in the building. Although a few matching windows were added to the exterior walls, most of the windows are original. The hardware for the conference room's sliding door was found in the cannery, and carried patent dates of 1901, and 1903. Two blue lamps in the kitchen were found in the cannery. So were piles of nautical charts, a testament to the company's far-flung activities around the Pacific Ocean. Some of the charts were used to wallpaper the bathrooms. |
Thank you for visiting the Cannery Cafe. We are proud to continue a rich family tradition of work on the Columbia River |
© cannerycafe.com |