 Astoria, Oregon, a fishing community of about 10,000 people on the American frontier, happened to be a magnet for the Finnish immigration.Located at the mouth of the Columbia River on the far northwest tip of the state, Astoria was cut off from population centers by the mountains of the Coast Range to the East and the waters of the river to the North, and sat perched upon the hills looking toward the Pacific Ocean in the West.It was a hamlet which developed in isolation, a community where newly arriving Finns could readily find others who spoke their language.