Second Decade

This is a bonus episode which goes outside the parameters of the main Second Decade show. Astoria, Oregon was founded in 1811 as an outpost for fur trapping and trading on the Northwest coast, and was intended to be a crucial part of a global empire of commerce envisioned by German-born New York City millionaire John Jacob Astor. It didn’t quite work out that way, but the long history of Astoria has involved a number of fascinating people, encounters and accidents that have shaped this small Oregon city throughout the two centuries of its existence. There’s no way the entire history of Astoria can be crammed into a single podcast episode, but a few colorful anecdotes from its past will give you a sense of what this place is like and how it came to be what it is. In this Off Topic episode, recorded partially on location in Astoria and neighboring areas, Dr. Munger will give a brief history of the town as a whole, focusing on its establishment in the Second Decade, and then you’ll journey through three stories