Euro-American expansion into the lower Columbia came first by sea and then by land, bringing diseases such as smallpox and malaria that struck the Chinook several times between 1801 and 1853 and reduced their population to fewer than 500. As surviving Chinook gathered in select communities and villages were abandoned, many newcomers saw the land as open for settlement. In the 1830s missionaries arrived in the Northwest, followed by homesteaders and land speculators, while the remaining Chinook continued to live on the lower Columbia River. In 1846, rapid American population growth helped shift power as Great Britain ceded its claim to land south of the 49th parallel to the United States in the Oregon Treaty. In 1848, after the U.S. declared Oregon a territory, Washington Hall settled on Chinook land, agreed to allow Chinook access to water, then broke that agreement and sold parcels of their land. In 1850, although Indians had not ceded their land to the U.S. government, the Donation Land Claim Act allowed transfers of 320 acres each to a man and his wife. In 1851, several Chinook bands made treaties with federal Indian Agent Anson Dart at Tansy Point, agreeing to cede land for payment and the right to live, fish, and hunt on ancestral lands, but the treaties were never ratified. In 1853, Patrick J. McGowan purchased half of a former mission grant and in 1857 settled on this site, where he established a salmon packing operation that later became a cannery. In the 19th century, the Columbia River salmon run was one of the Pacific Coast's largest, drawing many fishermen to the river. The first salmon cannery on the Columbia was established in 1866, and by 1883 the fishing and canning industries had reached a peak, with 55 canneries at the river's mouth and commercial fishers taking 43 million pounds of Chinook salmon alone. In 1896, the U.S. began building Fort Columbia on the hillside west of Middle Village, thought to be the site of Chief Comcomly's village. Patrick McGowan had St. Mary's Catholic Church built in 1904, and in 1907-08 the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company completed a rail line from Megler through McGowan connecting Ilwaco with the Long Beach Peninsula, as McGowan expanded operations to Ilwaco. In the 1920s, auto ferry service began between McGowan, Washington and Astoria, Oregon, and in 1966 the Astoria-Megler Bridge opened. From 1946 to 1961, the U.S. and the states pursued policies to terminate tribal sovereignty and place tribes under state jurisdiction, with Western Oregon Indians among the specific targets; almost all terminated tribes were later restored, and the U.S. eventually acknowledged the injustice of the policy. By 1990, returning salmon had fallen from 16 million to 2.5 million per year. Today, many people remain connected to this place through ancestral ties, including about 2,500 people in the Chinook Nation, many living near Willapa Bay, and descendants of the McGowan family.