5th Annual CRPA/Bumble Bee Reunion
August 14th, 2009
The 5th annual CRPA/Bumble Bee Reunion sponsored by the J.O. Hanthorn Cannery Foundation is Saturday, August 15, 2009 from 3:00-6:00 p.m. at Pier 39 in Astoria, Oregon. Scheduled as a regular part of the Astoria Regatta, the reunion celebrates the heritage of Astoria’s glory days as the Salmon-Canning Capital of the World.
The Columbia River Packers Association (CRPA) was officially incorporated in 1899. Known originally as The Combine, the CRPA was the culmination of several years of abortive efforts by lower Columbia River cannerymen to consolidate operations in an industry that was intensively over-capitalized by the late 19th century. The CRPA went on to be the largest cannery operation on the Columbia River, as well as the largest employer in Clatsop County, Oregon for most of the 20th century. Acquired in a merger with Castle & Cook in the late 1950s, in 1960 the company was renamed Bumble Bee Seafoods after its best-selling brand label.
With declining salmon runs as the 20th century progressed, in large part due to the development of the federal hydropower system in the Columbia Basin, the CRPA diversified into canning albacore tuna, which were discovered offshore by the troll fleet in the 1930s. But, albacore are a highly migratory species, eventually leading to increasing dependence on larger tropical species of tuna, the market for which was controlled by other countries. Commercial fishing for Columbia River spring Chinook was curtailed by the 1960s, and for summer Chinook by the 1970s. With access to tuna becoming increasingly expensive, the economic incentive for running the cannery operation in Astoria became less and less attractive. Bumble Bee ceased operation of its Astoria fish-packing facilities in 1980.
For more information see the websites of the Hanthorn Cannery Foundation and Pier 39-Astoria below:
http://www.pier39-astoria.com/
