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same year Captains White and Hustler arrived and brought the first pilot boat to operate on the Columbia-river bar, the Mary Taylor. The pilots had their headquarters at Astoria, and this led to increased trade for Astoria and the establishment of boarding houses for the accommodation of the shipping men and the passengers of vessels that stopped here either to await favorable wind to proceed to up-river points or to cross the bar or to complete their cargoes of lumber or increase their cargoes of provisions with a few barrels of salt salmon.

When Col. John Adair, the first collector of customs, arrived at Astoria he occupied the McClure house and tried to secure land from the different owners of the town on which to build the customhouse. The owners refused to donate the land and fixed the price at a figure which Colonel Adair considered too high. The result of this disagreement was the establishing of the United States customhouse at Upper Astoria and the beginning of the rivalry between the upper and lower towns, which lasted for many years, and led to the building up of two towns mutually jealous of each other yet having every interest in common. Judge Strong, who passed through Astoria in 1850, says:

When Astoria was pointed out as we reached the point below, I confess to a feeling of disappointment. Astoria, the oldest and most famous town in Oregon, we had expected to find a larger place. We saw before us a straggling hamlet, consisting of a dozen or so of small houses irregularly planted along the river bank shut in by the dense forest. We became reconciled and indeed somewhat elated in our feelings when we visited the shore and by its enterprising proprietors were shown the beauties of the place. There were avenues and streets, squares and public parks, wharves and warehouses, churches and theaters and an immense population—all upon the map. Astoria at that time was a small place or rather two places—the upper and the lower town—between which there was great rivalry. The upper town was known to the people of lower Astoria as Adairville. The lower town was designated by its rival as "Old Fort George or McClure's Astoria." A road between the two places would have weakened the