This 125-foot-tall Astoria Column serves as a monument to the history Pacific Northwest. The idea for the column first came about in 1898 when the city thought to build an electrified tower that would rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.
The Astoria Column was finished in 1926, and is gorgeous because of of the artist Pusterla’s, and his sgraffito artwork, an ancient technique in which images are engraved into wet plaster and then colored powders are hand-blown into the outlines.
The lower bands begin with Captain Gray’s arrival to the Columbia River in May 1792, and his first contact with the Chinook and Clatsop tribes. As it winds up to the top of the column, the histogram continues with the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s arrival in the area, the arrival of the first European settlers, and ends with the arrival of the railroad to Astoria in 1893.
The column stands atop Coxcomb Hill and includes an interior spiral staircase that leads to an observation deck at the top with beautiful views of Astoria.
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