River City

storia, Oregon, spreads along the bank of the Columbia River, 10 miles upstream from the. A boom/bust pattern set in. World War II brought prosperity—and peril. One of the war’s few seaborne attacks on the Lower 48 came in June 1942 when the crew of Japanese submarine I-25 shelled nearby Fort Stevens. In the 1950s, Astorian Maila Nurmi won fame as TV horror flick hostess Vampira. Local inventor Eben H. Carruthers revolutionized fish canning in 1960 with a machine that sliced tuna into uniform shapes but by 1980 nearly all of Astoria’s canneries had closed. Today, tourism has brought new life to the waterfront. Visitors can stroll the 6.4-mile Riverwalk, sample the wares of micro-breweries and boutiques that occupy refurbished warehouses, and learn more about Astoria at the Columbia River Maritime Museum ().