John Jacob Astor never saw the city that carries his name
Astoria is named for John Jacob Astor, the fur trader whose Pacific Fur Company founded a post at the Columbia’s mouth in 1811. He never visited.
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Washington Irving wrote the first bestseller about Astoria without ever going there
In 1836 Washington Irving published Astoria, a commissioned history of John Jacob Astor’s Pacific venture that shaped how Americans saw the Northwest.
