Astoria

Fort Astoria was the Pacific Fur Company's primary fur trading post in the Northwest, and was the first American-owned settlement on the Pacific... coast. After a short two-year term of US ownership, the British owned and operated it for 33 years. It was the first British port on the Pacific coast of the Americas. Control of Fort Astoria was a factor in the British and the Americans' resolving their disputed claims to the Oregon Country. The Fort Astoria Site was added to the list of National Historic Landmarks on November 5, 1961. It is marked by a reconstructed block house and is home to The Fort George Building, which houses Fort George Brewery. The fort was founded in March 1811 when officers and employees of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company, controlled by Americans, arrived via Captain Jonathan Thorn's ship,Tonquin. By the end of May, they had completed a fort, built with bark-covered logs enclosing a stockade, with guns mounted for defense. In 1811 the Tonquin carried 12 Native Hawaiian laborers from the islands, including Naukane . In 1812 it transported another 26 laborers to Astoria from Hawaii.
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The Captain George Flavel House Museum, known also as Capt. George Flavel House and Carriage House, is now a house museum in Astoria, Oregon, United... States. It was built in 1885 in the Queen Anne architectural style, by George Flavel, a Columbia River bar pilot who was one of the area's first millionaires. The house and its carriage house were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The house is owned and operated by the Clatsop County Historical Society. The museum is well known to fans of the film The Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria. It is featured as the museum where Mikey's father works as a curator.
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Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the... undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "Some People", "Rose's Turn", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "It's De-Lovely", "Friendship", "You're the Top", "Anything Goes", and "There's No Business Like Show Business", which later became her theme song. Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann in her maternal grandmother's house located at 26-5 4th Street in Astoria, Queens, in New York City in 1908, though she would later emphatically declare that it was actually 1912. Her father, Edward Zimmermann , was an accountant with James H. Dunham & Company, a Manhattan wholesale dry-goods company, and her mother, Agnes , was a school teacher. Zimmermann had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and his wife was Presbyterian, but shortly after they were wed they joined the Episcopalian congregation at Church of the Redeemer, where Merman was baptized.
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