ASTORIA, Ore. -- The city of Astoria has taken control of a 111-year-old mansion whose history traces the rise of a family prominent in the city's maritime and banking enterprises.
City officials say the last occupant known to be alive, Mary Louise Flavel, hasn't been heard from, and they don't know whether she's alive.
A week ago, after invoking a derelict building ordinance passed a year ago, city officials toured the house, the Daily Astorian reported.
They found it crammed from top to bottom with newspapers and magazines from the last century in layers three feet thick, among other items that included a 1950s-era woman's swimsuit hanging in an all-pink bathroom, an IRS notice about unpaid taxes for 1979, and what appeared to be the remains of a dog in a refrigerator.
