Bringing the past to the present
Courtesy photo
Jeremy C. Ruark / The Chief
A local history buff has created an online space to share photos and stories from Clatskanie’s past and see how the area has evolved over the years. The photo on the left is a postcard showing downtown Clatskanie in 1910, the photo on the right is what the same area looks like today. MONIQUE MERRILL chronicle2@countrymedia.net
Not every 20-year-old spends their free time searching for their hometown but Mason Kent does. Kent is a recent history aficionado who’s taken an interest in the last 100 years of Clatskanie. Kent finds old photos and shares them on the Facebook group he created called “The old Clatskanie.” His interest in memories of the past was sparked when his mother sent him a picture of a main street in Clatskanie from the ‘50s and he saw the old businesses that lined the road in the black-and-white picture. He then started to research
and found a few more old pictures of local landmarks and bygone gas stations and decided to form an online space to collect and share the pictures. “I looked on Facebook groups and there’s a lot of ‘Old Oregon’ or ‘Old Logging,’ but none of ‘Old Clatskanie,’” he said. So, on Dec. 1, he decided to change that. Kent created the group in the afternoon and then headed off to work, not checking his phone until well into shift at 1 a.m. “It kind of blew up,” he said. In the first several hours there were already 50 or 60 people who had joined, he said. As of Wednesday, Dec. 16, the group had 240 members.
“There’s a lot of cool posts and a lot of cool people,” Kent said. For Kent, who has spent most of his life in Clatskanie, it’s interesting to see the evolution of the main roads in town and see how life has changed. “It’s crazy to think there was a Ford dealership,” he said. “It was like a full town, you didn’t have to go anywhere to get something.” That said, he likes Clatskanie the way it is now, too. Looking at old pictures he said he gets the sense it was a small, busy town where everyone got along and worked hard. “Being a small town, I’d hope and I’d think the mood hasn’t changed much from how it was
then to how it is now,” he said. “Personally I really like my small town. I recognize faces and know people from Clatskanie since I was 5-years-old. There’s been a few fires, a few big floods; when stuff like that happens people come together as a community.” Kent and the members of the Old Clatskanie Facebook group aren’t alone in their interest of the early days of Clatskanie. Deborah Hazen, president of the Clatskanie Historical Society and museum coordinator, also took an interest in the stories and pictures that define the past of Clatskanie. Hazen said she was unaware of the new online group, but is in
City seeks funds to smooth out SW Bel Air Drive JEREMY C. RUARK jruark@countrymedia.net
Clatskanie City Manager Greg Hinkelman has gained a reputation of finding funding resources for city
projects without having to ask for increasing taxes. Hinkelman’s latest effort is to find $175,000 to repave SW Bel Air Drive, one of the city’s most used travel routes. “Bel Air Drive is a heavily traveled street that intersects Highway 30,” he said. “It is the main route to the post office and the street leading to Clatskanie Middle/High School.”
That consistent traffic along Bel Air is adding to the deterioration of the pavement, and while Hinkelman said the deterioration may not be highly visible yet, the city wants to take a proactive approach to the public works project. “Each year that we wait, the street deteriorates,” he said. “It’s not in bad shape now but we don’t want to wait for it to become a major issue.” Hinkelman said the city had
See FUNDS Page A6
See HISTORY Page A3
Health Authority (OHA) Director Pat Allen said. “The challenge is we’ve been given no distribution schedule or any idea of how many doses to expect on any regular basis, so it’s really impossible for us to put a specific timeline on that,” said Allen. About 70% of the state needs to be vaccinated to achieve community immunity, Brown said. To accomplish that, she said more than 10,000 residents will need to be vaccinated per day. “It’s a tall order, and we can’t do it without federal resources to deliver the doses and support our distribution and outreach efforts,” she said.
Fast fact COVID-19 vaccinations may be available at no cost to the general public by late spring 2021.
Jeremy C. Ruark / The Chief
First vaccinations occur in state MONIQUE MERRILL chronicle2@countrymedia.net
The City of Clatskanie hopes to qualify for a state grant to repave SW Bel Air Drive.
support of more people from the community taking an interest in the past. “I think it’s a great idea and I’m happy Mason has decided to do this and get others interested,” Hazen said. The museum has been closed due to pandemic restrictions and ongoing renovations to the Castle (which houses both the museum and the senior center), but has a wealth of old pictures and oral history of the area. The historical society was started back in the late ‘90s when
Frontline health care workers at Legacy Hospital were the first people in the state to be vaccinated against COVID-19 on Wednesday. “We kick off this historic vaccine campaign in Oregon with our health care workers, who have been our first line of defense against COVID-19. Today they will receive the first vaccinations,” Gov. Kate Brown said Wednesday. “These heroes have poured everything they have into this fight.” The first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Oregon on Monday. The shipment was from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE and was given emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, Dec. 9. “The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in Oregon, the first of many that will be distributed across the state,” Brown said in a release Monday. “Starting with the frontline health care workers who have been our first line of defense against COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, and the long-term care facility residents who are among the most vulnerable, each day, more and more Oregonians will be vaccinated against this disease.” Legacy Health’s Portland and Tualatin hospitals were the first to receive the vaccines, each receiving a package containing 975 doses. The remainder of this week’s allocation of 35,100 doses are expected at hospitals around the state throughout the week. Skilled nursing facilities will receive 10,725 doses for vaccinations that start next week. Despite the deliveries, public health officials and government leaders still advise residents to continue to practice prevention measures, as vaccinations for the general public are still months away.
Vaccine details
Metro Creative Connection / The Chief
The shipments follow a U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision on Friday to issue an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was found in Phase 3 clinical trials to be 95% effective and, in most people, cause only mild to moderate, short-lived side effects.
“As we wait for wide distribution of the vaccine, one of our most important challenges is to remind Oregonians to keep your guard up,” Brown said in a press conference Dec. 11. “We all need to keep wearing masks, limiting get togethers and maintaining social distance until we achieve community immunity.” The question of when community immunity will be possible is still uncertain, and depends largely on how many additional doses of vaccines the state will receive after this month. What is known is that by the end of December, the state is slated to receive 147,000 doses of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The first round of vaccine recipients will be certain hospital staff and longterm care facility staff and residents. There are around 360,000 healthcare workers who will need the vaccine and no information yet from the federal government on future vaccine dose allocation. The uncertainty makes it difficult to predict when all residents will have the opportunity to be vaccinated, Oregon
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses to be effective. The Pfizer vaccine doses need to be administered 21 days apart and the Moderna vaccines need to be administered 28 days apart. Public health officials anticipate there will be enough of the two vaccines to provide first doses to about 100,000 people this month, with second doses to follow in January. The Pfizer vaccine requires ultra cold storage (-94 degrees) and is good for five days after thaw. Most of the facilities with capability to store vaccines at that temperature are located along the Interstate-5 corridor, but cold storage hubs will be set up across the state. The Moderna vaccine will likely be used in more rural areas because it only requires standard freezing temperatures and is good for 30 days after thaw. The initial number of doses each county will receive will depend on the number of hospital employees and long term care facility residents and staff are in the area, and more specific details will be released as the vaccines arrive to the state. According to health officials, some of the side effects of the Pfizer vaccine include fatigue, headache, chills and muscle aches to varying extents for those in the 16-55 age group.
See VACCINES Page A7