Cafe Unknown

2011-12-29T06:33:00.000-08:00

The Wil / Wal Controversy

From Cascades frozen gorges
Leaping like a child at play,
Winding, widening through the valley,
Bright Willamette glides away
Onward ever,
Lovely river,
Softly calling to the sea;
Time, that scars us,
Maims and mars us,
Leave no track or trench on thee...

-From Beautiful Willamette, (1868) by Samuel L. Simpson.

When doomed Samuel L. Simpson, Oregon's first poet laureate, wrote Beautiful Willamette, he had a choice as to what form of name to address his muse. A dozen or so variants in spelling and pronunciation, dating from the exploration and early settlement eras, had winnowed down to two leading contenders: Willamette and Wallamet.

In the decade that followed, a protracted public debate ensued, with supporters of each name arguing passionately for legitimacy- "The Wil / Wal Controversy."

The steamboat Wallamet, circa 1854.

The question first appeared in the Oregonian on April 5, 1857, seventeen years before the height of the controversy. The article: Wallamet or Willamette etc etc, noted:

"The orthography of our far-famed valley is curiously unsettled, like a good many other things in a newly settled country. The "University Press," the Statesman, Fremont, the first bound volume of Oregon laws, the pronunciation of the early settlers, following the natives, make it Wallamet. Wilkes, following the Frenchified of some romantic scribblers of the East, has it Willamette."

The Statesman was the Salem newspaper, John Charles Fremont a western explorer, and Charles Wilkes was the leader of the first U.S. Navy expedition to the Pacific Coast.

"We rather think the Wallamets will in the end have it."

Portland in the 1870s.

"Among the fir clad hills and broad rich valleys of Oregon, the bucolic instinct still lingers. Of the 100,000 people who constitute the permanent population of Oregon, fully four fifths of them dwell not in town or village, but upon farms. Yet the commercial metropolis of Oregon, Portland-on-Wallamet is the second town of importance on the Pacific Coast. Next to San Francisco the capital of commerce of the Pacific Slope will center in this solid and respectable Oregon town."

-The Overland Monthly, July 1868.

Judge Matthew P. Deady

The author of the Overland Monthly article was U.S. District Court Judge Matthew P. Deady of Portland, a Wallamet adherent, some would say zealot. That same year he wrote in the San Francisco Bulletin:

"The word is of Indian origin, and as they have no written language the early settlers of this country caught the pronunciation from them and gave it an English orthography."

He noted that it was spelled differently by different people and listed three variants: Wallamet, Whalamet, and Wallamut. As for Willamette, he believed it derived from a mistaken belief the name had its origins with the French Canadian voyageurs employed by the the Hudson's Bay fur company.

By the time of Deady's writings, Willamette was the more common name in use. Evidence of its continued ascent could be found in Wallamet University changing the spelling of its name to Willamette University in 1870.

Judge Jesse Quinn Thornton

In Our River and Its Name (the Oregonian on March 11 1870), Jesse Quinn Thornton, a former Territorial Supreme Court Justice, wrote:

"...there does not appear to be, even among educated persons, any uniformity as to the method of spelling the name of the valley, which is by far the richest and most interesting portion of our state."

He came down on the side of Wallamet:

"The word itself is of Indian origin, purely aboriginal" and referred to the "miscalled Willamette University," a sentiment he expanded upon in a second piece on April 20 1870:

"It ought not be forgotten that this University was built up by the early missionaries, upon the foundation of an Indian mission school; and that the same missionaries procured for it a charter, designating it as Wallamet University- not the affected and fanciful French name of Willamette University.

Judge William Strong

Thornton's letter was met with a rebuttal by William Strong, a fellow retired Territorial Supreme Court justice, who advocated for Willamette in the Daily Herald, March 13, 1870.

Strong doubted the name had a Native American origin. If it did, he thought it unlikely used for the entire river. He cited the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition which referred to the river below the falls as the Multnomah.

He believed the word had French roots, referencing a letter from George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Bishop of Quebec in 1838.

He also related a "charming legend" of three French boys named Guilliam (William), who once lived along the river; thus the Guillamette (little Guilliam's) River, anglicized to Willamette.

The Wallamat, or Multnomah River flows deep into the eastern reaches of the Oregon Country in this 1825 map. Multnomah is from the Chinook word for downriver: nematlnomaq.

The Wil / Wal Controversy began in earnest with the publication of the State Code in September 1874 which adhered, as all prior ones had, to the Wallamet name. Complaints on its usage in the Oregon legislature prompted Judge Deady to write The True Name of Our Beautiful River in the Oregonian, October 15 1874.

Again, he pronounced a possible French origin of the name as in error:

"The use of Wallamet can be traced back to the early part of this century when the country first became known to white people. It is an Indian word, and the true and original name of the river, while Willamette is an ignorant and anonymous fabrication or a modern corruption of the former."

He cited numerous early sources in support of Wallamet and its variants, including Dr. John McLoughlin (in documents from 1844) and Alexander Ross (reminiscences on his arrival in 1811, published in 1840). Deady concluded:

"...admitting that no one is bound by authority in this matter and that we are at liberty to adopt whatever name we may fancy, we should chose the old name by all means. As between it and the modern, spurious one, there is no comparison in point of strength, dignity or euphony. Willamette has a thin, close, meagre sound, and a petty, foppish appearance, while the broad, full sounding Wallamet is every way worthy of the incomparable and beautiful river shall yet be known as the paradise of the Pacific."

Archbishop of Oregon, Francis Norbert Blanchet

Archbishop Francis Norbert Blanchet had written on the subject as "An Old Pioneer" in 1870. He returned to it under his own name and title in a letter to Governor L.F. Grover, published in the Oregonian, October 7 1874.

He recalled that upon his arrival in the Oregon Country in 1838, Wallamette was the only name used for the river and that Willamette came into broad use some time after 1850. The loss of the final te from Wallamet was "warranted by no tradition or authority whatsoever." As for Willamette, it was a "change or mutation" that was allowed to spread unchecked by early settlers. He ended with:

"Is there still any chance for restoring to our river, and its valley, this old and time honored name? If there be, please make use of the present to obtain it."

The Willamette River flows through Portland in 1852.

Judge William Strong returned to the fray, with a defense of Willamette and an attack on Judge Deady, in the Daily Bulletin, October 22 1874:

"When a new code is prepared by the Judge (Deady), it produces a newspaper controversy upon this subject, which seems to establish the strong presumption that the name Wallamet is not and never will be accepted by the people. This may be the reason why he persists in his effort to change the name. He seems to have a mania for reform of a sensational character."

The word had "no marks of an Indian word, no guttural or sibilant sounds- which abound in Indian languages." Its termination was "indicative to a French Canadian origin." Even if there had been a change to Willamette in the 1840s, it was at:

"...about the time when we first began to have authentic accounts of the river from educated and intelligent persons; and if such a change did take place at the time it was the result of American settlement, and a change from barbarism to civilization."

After an exhaustive list of Willamette precedents, he concluded:

"The name is too well fixed in the public mind now to be changed, even it were objectionable in point of taste. But I contend that Willamette is as much better taste than Wallamet as Mississippi and Virginia are in better taste than Mass-a-sap and Varginny."

Francis Fuller Victor

Francis Fuller Victor, author of The River of the West: The Adventures of Joe Meek, and numerous later works of Oregon history, was drawn into the controversy after being miss-quoted by Judge Strong. She wrote:

"From my first entrance into Oregon, about ten years ago, I have been an interested and industrious student of everything relating to the country, and among other things, what research could be made into the subject of Indian names, both for the sake of the subject itself, and in greater measure for the sake of accuracy in writing it. My researches led me to the following conclusions:

First, that the Indians never gave names to rivers as a whole, but instead used descriptive words in speaking of certain localities; hence that, on this plan, every river had various names, according as it was rapid, or deep, or clear, or stained, or had a fertile or barren shore etc..."

Citing the word whah meant to spill, or pour, in Native languages west of the Cascades, she found it likely that Whalla-mut referred to either the falls at Oregon City, or the place where the river flowed into the Columbia, or the region between both points.

"After careful consideration, I adopted the "Wallamet" spelling as retaining the sound of the original word, and at the same time deferring to an English notion of orthography, since all our Indian words are more or less anglicized."

Joseph Gale, writing from Eagle Creek, had come to similar conclusions on Native usage of the word:

"The Indians have more poetic talent than we are aware of, and this word is used by them as an adjective to describe the river, not as a noun merely to name it."

E.W.Reynolds sides with his Democratic friend, Judge William Strong. -The Oregonian, November 12 1874.

The controversy drew letters and readers to Portland newspapers. More than just a scholarly parlor game among the learned, it reflected social and political divisions, such as when James O'Meara, editor of Ben Holladay's paper, the Daily Bulletin, needed distance from Judge Deady for political reasons and opted to change his stance on Will / Wall to allow a sundering that concealed his true motives.

Readers lined up behind Judge Strong or Judge Deady. The exchange became heated. Strong lampooned Deady as "the only gentleman who hailed from Portland-on-Wallamet." Deady fired back at Strong's "silly little legend of the three French Willies." Strong had "committed gross and unpardonable error." Deady was "so very particular to criticize small mistakes, even those which can have no real bearing upon the real merits of the question." Strong had "fallen into pleasant delusion" and "relied upon his imagination for facts." Deady had a "mania" on the issue (Strong might have had him there).

"Judge Strong is a volunteer in this controversy, and it is his duty to inform himself before he undertakes to teach others." -The Oregonian, from Judge Deady's Reply to Judge Strong's Second Letter, November 20 1874.

To vitriol was added virtuosity as each side piled precedent upon precedent to make their case. Explorers accounts, linguistic tracts, pioneer reminiscences, maps, old deeds, receipts and legal transcripts were produced and duly cataloged as arguments continued into 1875.

After the controversy had played out, it was generally thought Wallamet was proved to be the older name and that it had Native American origins, but Willamette was by far more prevalent and accepted, a dissonance that prompted William Lair Hill, in the Oregonian, March 6 1875, to opine:

"But since Wil-lamette has become the more frequent form, in usage, would it not be well to accept the change? That is a question on which people may differ. Those who think it is desirable to preserve the original names of places and prominent physical objects in the country will take the negative; those who do not think so will take the affirmative."

The controversy generated so much interest that thirteen of the most noted letters from 1874-75, along with five from the initial skirmish of 1870, were gathered by George Himes in Wallamet or Willamette, a sixty six page book published in May 1875.

On June 1st 1876, six years after Willamette University changed from Wallamet University, the school reverted to its original name for a day when Judge Matthew Deady addressed its graduating class.

The final volley in the exchange took place nearly a quarter century later. On November 25 1895, two years after Deady's death and eight after Strong's, the Oregonian published Wallamet, A Post Script to an Old Controversy by Richard Hopwood Thornton, which drew attention to Captain Nathaniel Portlock's Voyage Around the World (1789) as the earliest source of the word in print. Portlock described seeing daggers purchased by the Indians of Puget Sound at "Wallamute."

The book, a copy of which was in the Portland Library, had miraculously escaped detection during the controversy (today it resides in the John Wilson Special Collections room at the Multnomah County library).

The revelation did not revive the debate, which was itself was receding into history. Wallamet was becoming a quaint anachronism, while Willamette, certainly by the publication of Lewis A. McArthur's Oregon Geographic Names in 1928, had achieved the status (apologies to Judge Deady) of stare decisis.

This post is dedicated to John Terry, member of the Oregon Geographic Names board and author of the Oregon Trails column in the Oregonian, which was sadly discontinued last Sunday. The column has been a favorite of mine for years. It did much to develop my belief that history is not something that just happens somewhere else. Thanks John!

-Dan Haneckow, Portland-on-Wallamet, December 29 2011.

(...the surname is of eastern German origin. The c was mysteriously added in America, decades after its arrival. The name ends with a long o sound, along the lines of Paltrow).

Cafe Unknown on facebook

2011-10-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

The Sculpture Beneath 4th Avenue

"Times change- This might not be right." So wrote the map's prior owner in the margins under item #23, an entry that purported the existence of a "Underground Sculpture."

Downtown Portland A Walking Tour Map with Guide to Points of Interest was issued, complements of Lipman's department store and First National Bank of Oregon, some time between the dedication of O'Bryant Square in December 1973 (item #32 "One of the newest additions to downtown's collections of parks...") and the opening of the Galleria (absent on the map) in 1976.

It provides of a glimpse of a watershed moment, when the Downtown Plan of 1972 began to produce tangible results, and of a Portland both familiar and alien. Benson Bubblers, the Dekum and Commonwealth buildings, Portland Art Museum, the Pioneer Courthouse and City Hall are highlighted, as well as landmarks of today with different names: Chown Electric (Kell's) the First National Bank Tower (Wells Fargo) and the Forecourt Fountain (Keller).

Backwaters are brought to forefront: The Portland Center (item #1) and Lovejoy Fountain (item #2). Some entrees, such as the Equitable Center (Unitus Plaza today) and Morgan's Alley remain, their prominence forgotten. Others are gone (the Yamhill Market), some practically from memory (the Mowhawk Galleries and Annex on the block bounded by SW 2nd, 3rd, Yamhill and Morrison).

Among the latter, I consigned the "Underground Sculpture." Surely it could not still be in place, unremarked, today. But what was its story? Where was it now?

The Georgia Pacific building under construction, on the block bounded by SW Salmon, Taylor, 4th and 5th, in 1968. -Marion Dean Ross Photograph, University of Oregon Libraries, Building Oregon collection.

The eight foot tall sculpture of pressed formed and chrome-plated steel, by Oregon artist Bruce West, was installed in its subterranean home in August 1973, five years after the completion of the Georgia Pacific building. Its last mention in the Oregonian was on February 1st 1981, from a walking tour for for families titled Making the City Your Playground. A year later, Georgia Pacific moved its corporate headquarters to Atlanta Georgia.

Beyond that time, I could not find reference of it anywhere.

I checked a Google Maps satellite view. There was a parking garage across 4th from the Georgia Pacific building, today known as the Standard Insurance Center, but it looked of more recent vintage than its towering neighbor. Did it replace an older structure? If so, had the connecting tunnel been filled in?

Alternate narratives formed in my mind. Did Georgia Pacific take the sculpture with them when they moved to Atlanta? Was it donated to the Portland Art Museum? Perhaps it sat in the lobby of the Standard Insurance Center, or in someones sculpture garden.

There was a way to find out.

I went to the parking garage at SW 4th and Salmon. I Followed the map's instructions and walked to the elevator. There was indeed a "C" level. I pressed the button and descended. The doors opened into a florescent lit corridor. I turned right and started walking. A short distance later the floor angled downward.

It stood facing between mirrors that created an infinity of gleaming silver sculptures. I was the only person there. The silence fostered an illusion of stopped time. Unlike an outdoor sculpture it had acquired no patina with age, it was pristine. It was still August 1973, art for automobile commuters, two months before the Oil Embargo.

I noticed how the mirrors opened up a space which otherwise would be too small for the piece's scale. I thought about the traffic on 4th Avenue passing unheard above my head, and of Richard Nixon. It had been there all along. It seemed so unlikely.

Times change. The sculpture had not.

Downtown Portland without Max, the Bus Mall or Pioneer Courthouse Square but with Front Avenue and Fareless Square.

Cafe Unknown of facebook
@DanHaneckow on Twitter

2011-10-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

Half Life

A visit to Old Portland Hardware and Architectural on SE 41st and Division is a chance to view the unexpected re-emergence of a cache from one of Portland's vanished architectural treasures; the Ladd Block (1881) knocked down in a storm of controversy in 1965. The story of its demolition and the dispersal of its pieces is one of reverence and disregard, back and forth, played out over the course of a half century.

"Among the edifices particularly worthy of mention are: The three story brick building on the northwest corner of First and Columbia, for Mr. W.S. Ladd. Special pains were taken by the architect, Mr. Justus Krumbein, to make the building equal if not superior in point of strength to any in the city." -The Oregonian, January 1 1882.

The Ladd Block, drawing by, and courtesy of William Hawkins III.

William Sargent Ladd's excursion into what is now called mixed use development was on Columbia, five blocks east of his mansion, and First, nine blocks south of his Ladd & Tilton Bank. On the ground level was space for four retail stores. The second floor held four large residences, laid out in the "French flat" system, each with two bedrooms, a parlor, dining room, kitchen, pantry, bathroom, closets and a separate staircase and exit. The top floor was divided into single rooms and suites for hotel purposes. The exterior was styled "modern Gothic" with cast-iron and tin architectural details and a menagerie of wolves, lions and bears standing watch on the upper levels. Sturdy, state of the art and fireproof, the Oregonian anticipated that it would still be standing when Portland's population reached five hundred thousand people.

In 1891, a hotel, the Ladd House, operated on the upper floors, offering furnished rooms for five dollars a piece and housekeeping rooms for three. In a possible reflection of First street's change in status over the prior decade as downtown moved west, its proprietor, Mary E. Baker, was accused of operating a brothel there in 1895. The hotel closed soon after.

"The Ladd House has the reputation of being a "graft house," a rendezvous for petty thieves and criminal of the lowest type, and particularly as an abiding place for slaves of morphine, cocaine and opium. Worse still, the officers say, that women of the lowest type resort there with male outcasts of society, and together they hold orgies that beggar description." -The Oregonian, April 6 1895.

A second hotel, the Villa House, opened on the premises a decade later. Its proprietor, Andrew C. Wald, was succeeded in 1914 by Tojiro Haji, the first of four Japanese-American hoteliers, followed by F.M. Isoshima (1920 to 1926), George K. Kawaguchi (1926 to 1930) and H.K. Uyesugi (1930 to 1942). There is likely a significance to the year of his departure.

Over the years various business occupied the store fronts on the ground floor, such as Sam Margulies's Saloon (circa 1911), Victors Cash Grocery (circa 1916) and the American Chili Parlors (circa 1928). In the 1950s a second hand store occupied the corner storefront at First and Columbia.

The Ladd Block in the 1950s. -Marion Dean Ross photo, Building Oregon Collection, University of Oregon.

Detail of above, of the second hand store on First and Columbia. On the once ubiquitous second hand business in the old downtown, Sam Raddon Jr. in the 1946 book Portland Vignettes, wrote: "There is color and atmosphere still, in the district that has seen better times, where the shop-keeper and his friend may sit in the shade of a summer afternoon, and talk of the affairs that effect their own little world. Where business comes from no one pretends to know. But year in and year out the routine goes on. The dust of a generation may seem to have accumulated on stock and trade, but occasionally, at least someone must sell, and someone else must buy."

The Villa House closed in 1963. For the next two years the building, owned by the Boyd Coffee Company, sat vacant. The stage was set for one of Portland's most notorious episodes of historic desecration.

Drawing in the Oregonian, February 20 1965.

On February 19 1965 the Portland Development Commission released an "area guide plan" for the blocks bounded by SW Front, 4th, Market and Salmon, immediately north of the South Auditorium Urban Renewal project. Unlike the scorched earth approach pursued with South Auditorium, which stripped the district even of its street grid, the "guide plan" proposed some rehabilitation in the existing neighborhood. Specifically cited for renovation were the "ancient iron front buildings" the Ladd and Monastes Blocks, on the west side of First, between Columbia and Jefferson.

The PDC's suggestion spurred the Boyd Coffee Company, whose office and plant bordered the buildings to the west, to contract with the Western Wrecking Company, to quickly demolish the structures.

"Fearing harassment by city agencies, or by concerned citizens, the owners of Boyd Coffee Company, who wanted to make room for a new warehouse, opted for the "midnight disappearance" strategy of demolition. Almost overnight, the half block Ladd building became a paved parking lot." -The Grand Era of Cast-Iron Architecture in Portland Oregon by William Hawkins III.

In response to the public outcry over the demolition, Mrs. V.B. Younger, secretary-treasurer of the Boyd Coffee Company, stated the city had ordered the buildings be bought up to code or demolished. Architects had been consulted and the cost to remodel the buildings was found to be prohibitive. She noted that the drawing (above) that had appeared in the Oregonian was for dramatic example, not to be taken literally.

"There is no condemnation order against the buildings." -Portland Mayor Terry Shrunk in the Oregonian, March 12 1965.

"I resent the fact that the owner appears to passing the onus to the city, by claiming he was ordered to raise the buildings." -Francis J. Murnane, Portland Art Commission in the Oregonian, March 12 1965.

Wolf head ornament from the upper level of the Ladd Block, donated to the Architectural Heritage Center by Christopher Boyd.

The long half life of the Ladd Block began when Bob Hazen, President of the Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan, was walking by the demolition site when he noted its metal pieces. With no particular use in mind, he asked a workman if he could purchase some of them. A price of three thousand dollars was agreed upon. They were removed to a warehouse for storage.

Ten years later, a use for the pieces was found when the Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan purchased a newly completed office tower, across the street on First from the site of the Ladd Block, for its corporate headquarters. On the top floor Bob Hazen outfitted a luxurious executive suite that utilized the Ladd Block's fixtures.

To create his 19th century haven on the 19th floor, Hazen consulted with Portland preservationist Eric Ladd to create a most unlikely office space, complete with a stained glass ceiling from the Washington Hotel, made surplus after most of its lobby was converted into courtyard, and a stairwell mural of the Ladd Block by William Hawkins (from the drawing at the beginning of this post). Decorative tin and ironwork were re-purposed as book cases to surprisingly good effect. A statue of Benjamin Franklin, and a receptionist dressed as Dolly Madison completed the eclectic, if somewhat surreal, scene.

The 19th Floor, with ceiling from the Washington Hotel and a column from the Ladd Block.

Two years later, in 1977, a column from the Ladd Block, from the Portland's Friends of Cast Iron Architecture's collection, was mounted in the new pedestrian arcade at Ankeny Square which showcased the area's cast iron heritage.

When the Benj. Franklin closed in 1990 Bob Hazen's office suite was dismantled with the pieces donated to the Bosco-Milligan Foundation. Some can be seen today in the Architectural Heritage Center's Rebuilding South Portland exhibit.

Ladd Block piece at the Architectural Heritage Center.

The recently removed courtyard installation in the former Benj. Franklin Plaza. Sadly, the whereabouts of the lions are unknown.

Until recently there were remnants of Bob Hazen's cast-iron confection, nearly forgotten, in the 19th floor courtyard and lobby of the building now known at the Umpqua Bank Plaza. It is those pieces that have appeared at Old Portland Hardware after being removed in a recent remodel. Upon being contacted by the project's architect, Bret Hodgert and Scott at Old Portland had very little time to wheel the fixtures, some weighing hundreds of pounds, downstairs to a loading dock, which happily was higher than their flat bed truck.

"When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more to be that archeologist in National Geographic. It was kind of like that." -Bret Hodgert of Old Portland Hardware, on obtaining the Ladd Block pieces from the remodel site.

Bear from the Ladd Block at Old Portland Hardware and Architectural.

For a short time the Ladd Block pieces can be seen in three places: the Architectural Heritage Center, Ankeny Square and Old Portland Hardware. Save for those at AHC their long term status is in flux, as the Old Portland pieces are for sale, and a possible revamp of Ankeny Square, mentioned in 2009, which might replace the current installation with a new twelve columned structure.

Signage at Ankeny Square, this one describing the Ladd Block has deteriorated badly.

A fence, later added to protect the Fire Fighters exhibit, effectively cut the cast-iron display in half.

The situation at Ankeny Square symbolizes Portland's relationship with its past, the seesawing between veneration and neglect, with no way to predict the next swing. Will the revamp, which might include restrooms and a information kiosk ever take place? Will the existing cast iron on the wall be removed to storage after the new arcade, essentially a zero sum game, or will the be refurbished (and hopefully repainted in something other that the odd choice of back)? What of the rest of the trove of cast-iron, owned by the PDC, that is stored under a bridge? Forty-six years after after the loss of one of the last major cast-iron building to be demolished, the questions remain on how to best re-purpose Portland's iron age remnants.

Proposed Ankeny Square revamp. Perhaps a return to Vine Street? -The Portland
Mercury.

First and Columbia, site of the Ladd Block, one of the few surface parking lots lost to new construction.

The Ladd and Monastes Blocks, looking north on First from Columbia in the 1950s. -Marion Dean Ross photo, Building Oregon Collection, University of Oregon.

Cafe Unknown on Facebook.

High Water!

On Monday, October 17 at the Mission Theater at 7:00pm I will be presenting High Water; Portland and the Flood of 1894 for the Oregon Encyclopedia's History Night.

From the press release:

On May 27, 1894, the rising Willamette River began to flow into the streets of Portland. For one month, Portland, already reeling from the financial crash of 1893, was inundated by floodwaters. City life came to a halt, then adapted with flotillas of small boats for shopping and spindly bridges that spanned between second floors. Fire engines were towed through the streets on barges, and the bars moved onto rafts. The receding water left the city a hellish, stinking mess.

Dan Haneckow explores Portland of the 1890s and its watery ordeal with stunning images of the "Metropolis of the Northwest" as it dealt with one of its greatest challenges.

Hope to see you there!

2011-07-19T07:16:00.000-07:00

This is Not Historic

The Jackals welcome in 1989 at Satyricon. -Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.

Soon the Hotel West, better known as the Satyricon and the Kiernan building, aka the Dirty Duck, will be demolished.

The loss of Satyricon, a Portland equivalent to the Cavern Club, exposes the weakness of Portland's ability to identify and protect its historic resources. Too often a structure's historic value is determined by the context of when it was built, not its significance acquired over time. A century from now, looking back at the 1980s, Portlanders will likely still have the Portland Building, a structure of architectural significance but of dubious communal connection, but not Satyricon.

NW 6th from Couch, May 1985. Henry's- Working Man's Friend (later the Sav-Mor Grub, blown up along with its neighbor to the north in 1989) Portland Tattoo, Demetri's Grocery, the Hotel West / Satyricon (arched doorway) and the Butte Hotel. The Butte Hotel sign still hangs in place, now hidden by ubiquitous street trees.
-Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.

To those who view streetscapes as a form of narrative, Portland will be a poorer place without Satyricon, the Dirty Duck or the Galaxy restaurant at SE 9th and Burnside. Each will be replaced by structures in the approved contemporary du jour, devoid of continuity with their surroundings.

A proposed replacement for the Hotel West / Satyricon. Described in a recent Portland Architecture piece by Fred Leeson, it recreated the general look of its predecessor on the first floor. It was not to be.

In the case of the Hotel West, there was a significant effort to echo and honor the site's history architecturally by the Macdonald Center in their proposed design for the building's replacement.

The plan was found unacceptable by the Portland Design Commission, preferring a slate scraped clean of prior reference for new development. Commissioner David Keltner noted that new buildings can be compatible with, yet clearly differentiated from older neighbors, if not, "You don't have a clear understanding of what's what, and what is historical".

This philosophy, with its built in preference for contemporary forms, risks an antiseptic downtown; a pleasant enough tree-lined doldrum with the spontaneity and depth of a gated community. It dilutes the uniqueness of individual streetscapes in favor of accepted standards bereft of prior local context.

Pearl District refugee?

Nowhere is this better illustrated, to almost comic effect, than by the recent structure beneath the west end of the Burnside Bridge. Located a few yards away from where First, Ankeny and Vine intersected at the Skidmore Fountain, the core of Portland's original cast-iron fronted downtown, it sits like a Design Within Reach catalog backdrop in opposition to the area's historic character. It was a squandered opportunity to utilize cast-iron fixtures already owned by the city that languish in storage.

Last chance to see. The Kiernan building (aka the Dirty Duck) at NW Third and Glisan. -Dan Haneckow photo.

Its arguable that a successful building need only to fulfill its function. Aesthetics, context and history are of secondary importance to owners - but are primary concerns of design and landmark advisory bodies. In Portland, the interplay of the Design Commission, the Historic Landmarks Commission and the City Council have much to say about what is historic and what is acceptable for the city's built environment's design, as illustrated below by the Kiernan building:

The intersection of Third and Glisan, prior to the 1916 construction of the Kiernan building. The earlier structure on the site supported an impressive array of billboards. The Shasta Hotel and the future home to the Blanchet House are to the right. Until 1912 the original Steel Bridge descended to street level on Third, just to the right of the frame.
-Christopher Wilson collection, courtesy of John Klatt, Old Oregon Photos.

The Kiernan building (and Pike Tent and Awning) looking northwest on 3rd in October 1980. Intentionally or not, its low profile echoed that of the prior building on the site. Despite a long, varied history involving numerous communities (see the post Ducking the Questions) it was found by the City Council not to be historic enough for preservation. -Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.

The Blanchet House's original plan for the Kiernan building site. Just as the Design Commission rejected the Macdonald Center's plans for the Hotel West / Satyricon on design grounds, the Blanchet House's plan was turned by by Historic Landmark Commission as out of character with the neighborhood.

The design for the Blanchet House that was approved by the Historic Landmarks Commission. While not particularly out of character with its historic surroundings, it is a missed chance to incorporate the original structure, or to have traded out a nearby city owned parking lot and thus live up to Portland's sustainability rhetoric. Still, it avoids the problems of other compromises for the sake of compatibility, such as the base of the Ladd Tower on the Park Blocks, more appropriate to Bridgeport Village than downtown Portland.

The loss of Satyricon and the Kiernan building illustrate the need for a new dialog about what is historic in Portland, not just with an eye to the past, but to what will be held significant in the future. This is especially true in regards to sites pertaining to local culture and communities not traditionally represented by landmarks. In the case of Satyricon, its importance, musically and as a representation of its era, was likely obscured by the fact that it was too recent to be considered history.

It is too late to save, but we can learn from its demise.

The look and feel of a city does not just happen. Do the preferences of the Design Commission reflect that of the public's? Above, the planned replacement for the Galaxy restaurant at SE 9th and Burnside.

Low slung commercial / light industrial buildings like the Kiernan began to appear in what had been known as the North End during the early decades of the 20th century. This building, along the Great Light Way, at Third and Davis still exists, the former home of the Kida Company. Today although much modernized, it could clean up quite nicely.
-Charles Ertz photo, courtesy of Gary Smith, via Marylou Colver.

NW Couch and 6th, the aftermath of the August 24 1989 bombing of Sav-Mor Grub, still an unsolved mystery. The Hotel West / Satyricon is to the far right.
-Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.

M99 at Satyricon, April 15 1991.
-Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.

Thanks to Christopher Wilson, John Klatt, Gary Smith, Marylou Colver and Thomas Robinson!

Cafe Unknown on Facebook

2011-06-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Opening Night

Through the shortest days of 1889 into the first weeks of the new decade, sounds of construction echoed from the blocks around Morrison, between 6th and 7th, as the Hotel Portland and the Marquam building raced toward completion.

The Hotel Portland, re-animated after a six year hiatus by the mercurial George B. Markle, promised to be the city's largest and most luxurious hostelry, while the Marquam Grand Opera House would be its most opulent entertainment venue.

Of the two, the Marquam was further along. As plaster set in the scaffold draped auditorium, its management encouraged speculation that it might be completed by Christmas.

The Marquam building from 6th and Morrison, nearing completion. Judge Philip A. Marquam and his family lived on the opposite corner of the block at 7th and Alder, in a house known for years as "the little New England cottage." -Photo courtesy of Norm Gholston.

Al Hayman, holder of the opera house's concession, also ran the Baldwin and New California theaters in San Francisco. After inspecting the Marquam upon his arrival, he spoke to the Oregonian:

"You can tell the people of Portland that Judge Marquam is going to give them a theater, second to none in the country in point of beauty, comfort and artistic finish. There will not be a bad seat in the house, and the indoor decorative work will be on a scale befitting the general richness of the structure. My efforts will be directed towards giving a series of attractions in keeping with the theater, and of a character to reflect credit upon any first class house in any city of America. I am confident that the result will justify me in doing this, feeling well assured that the public generally, and particularly the better class of people, of Portland will appreciate my labors."

The New Year passed. Anticipation grew as Portlanders looked forward to productions of a quality and scale unprecedented.

"It will be the first time that our people have the opportunity to listen to grand opera by a competent company, and they will no doubt take advantage of the occasion to come out in full force and in full dress."

For the opening, the Emma Juch Grand English Opera Company, fresh from an appearance in Washington D.C. before President Harrison, were to perform a week long engagement of seven operas.

Soprano Emma Juch was born July 4 1865 in Vienna Austria. Her family came to America when she was two. Her debut was in 1883 as Felina, in Mignon, for Her Majesty's Grand Italian Opera company in London. She joined the American Opera Company in 1886. When it disbanded, she formed her own touring company.

As January drew to a close, anticipation turned to ennui as the wait drew on.

"The dramatic world has partaken the same air of dullness and uneventfulness that has characterized the business life of the city in the past week. With the exception of the farce comedy "Rooms to Rent" at the Musee-Theatre and the Georgia Minstrels at the New Park, the last there has been nothing of even moderate interest to attract the amusement seekers." -The Oregonian, January 26 1890.

The New Park Theatre, where the Georgia Minstrels played, on the corner of Washington and Park, seen in a later incarnation as the Empress Theatre.

"Say what one will, there is something interesting and amusing about a good minstrel performance". -The Oregonian, January 26 1890.

At the dawn of the 1890s minstrel shows were in decline but still popular entertainment. Troupes of white performers, their faces blackened with burnt cork, had been portraying stereotypic depictions of African Americans in reviews since the 1840s. The shows featured comedy and songs, largely by white northerners such as Steven Foster, which presented an idealized version of southern slave life with only the most tenuous links to reality.

Richards and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels, opening at the New Park Theatre, were a relative rarity; a successful minstrel show comprised of African American performers.

"As a rule, the colored man cannot illustrate the peculiarities of his race so well as the white man, and for this reason, minstrel companies composed of representatives of the dark skinned race have not been so successful as those composed of their white brethren. But Richards and Pringle's minstrels are of the exceptions."
-The Oregonian, January 26 1890.

Featuring Billy Kersands, singer, comedian and master of "The Essence," a complex forerunner to soft-shoe, the company was nationally popular with both black and white audiences. They had played in Portland before to good reviews. Bound by the conventions and expectations established by white minstrel shows, they performed wearing burnt cork, in blackface.

"The African American Minstrel troupe that captured the larges and most loyal black southern following in the 1890s was Richards and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels".
-From Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music 1889-1895 by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff.

Billy Kersands got his start in traveling minstrel troupes in the 1860s. In 1875 he wrote Old Aunt Jemima, a song thought, unlike most minstrel material, to have been drawn from actual slave song origins. In 1889 it was heard by Chris Rutt, who appropriated the name for his newly created brand of pancake mix.

Richards and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels arrived from San Francisco by steamship early on Friday January 24th and immediately went to work to prepare for their opening at the New Park that same night. In addition to Billy Kersands, the sixteen person troupe featured Billy Farrell and Will Eldredge, solo trombonist W.O. Terry, harmoniconist Will G. Huff and Gauze, a female impersonator.

Miss Gauze's presence was not unique. Nick Tosches, in Where Dead Voices Gather, notes that while females in minstrel shows were relatively rare, drag acts were an element from nearly the beginning. He draws a direct line from the female impersonators in minstrel shows, moving on to vaudeville, from where Milton Berle bought the tradition to television in 1948, to Some Like it Hot in 1959, to Ru Paul in the 1990s.

Advertisements for Richards and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels at the New Park, and the Portland Cyclorama in the Oregonian from the previous year.

The Georgia Minstrels played three nights at the New Park, closing on Sunday, January 25th. Two days later, tickets for the opening of the Marquam Grand, set for February 3rd, went on sale at Kohler & Chase's Piano Emporium to a crowd that had waited outside the door since 6am.

"There is no question about the house being ready, as the chairs and fixtures have arrived, the scaffolding is being taken down, the carpets are being laid, and the interior of the theater will be as presentable as though it had been opened for six months". -The Oregonian, January 29 1890.

In actuality the chairs had not arrived. They were delayed in shipment and were not delivered until two days before the scheduled extravaganza. Opening night was pushed back a week. In San Francisco, Al Hayman scrambled to schedule an additional series of performances for the stranded Emma Juch Grand English Opera Company.

On Monday February 10th the doors of the Marquam Grand Opera House opened at last, with a performance of Charles Gounod's Faust, to a capacity crowd enchanted by its opulence. Upon entering, the audience encountered a huge drop curtain portraying the countryside, town and castle of Monaco. They marveled at the theaters plush blue seats, the rooms exquisite finish, workmanship and luxurious private boxes. But the spectacle was not confined to the surroundings.

"The opera house was packed from floor to dome by the culture, wealth and fashion of the city and a pleased surprise seemed to run through the entire audience as they gazed upon the interior beauties of this superb house." -The Oregonian, February 11 1890.

Portland society came to see and be seen. Man about town, Cyclorama backer and Ainsworth associate Lester L. Hawkins was in attendance, as was Miss Albina Page, doubtless the only person present with a city named for her. Oregon state senate president and future Portland mayor Joseph Simon, Crater Lake booster William Gladstone Steel, North End entrepreneur and future Portland mayor George P. Frank could be seen among the various Failings, Everetts, Goldsmiths, Starrs, Bickels, Dekums, Burnsides, Ralieghs, Saviers, Holmans, Heitshus and Pittocks. The house of Ladd, minus its aging patriarch, was represented by sons Charles and Wesley.

"It was as if everyone present realized the importance of the event from a social point of view, and was determined to do honor the occasion." -The Oregonian, February 11 1890.

The somber evening attire of the men was offset by the elaborate stylings of the women, as the upper echelons of Portland society strove to outshine each other. Mrs. Richard B. Knapp appeared in a Paris gown of yellow satin with a corsage decorated with rich point lace and a diamond necklace. Mrs. C.E.S. Wood wore a dress of blue grenadine, with ornaments and diamonds, while Miss Nellie Burnside was noted in a gown of white crepe, lace embellished corsage and a opera cloak of gray cashmere trimmed in white fur.

In the center of the dress circle could be seen Mrs. Henry J. Corbett wearing a black laced cloak of white velvet, embroidered with gold ornaments and diamonds of exceptional brilliance, next to Mrs. Charles E. Ladd in black lace, ornamented by pearls. Simeon and Amanda Reed sat in the front row of the parquette circle near the middle aisle. Judge Marquam sat in his own private box with his wife and four daughters.

Builder of the Grand, Judge Philip Augustus Marquam.

Like Billy Kersands and the Georgia Minstrels two weeks before, the 156 member Emma Juch Grand Opera Company had arrived by steamship from San Francisco.

In her interview with the Oregonian, Emma Juch said exactly the right things:

"Such a theatre is a monument to the artistic taste of the people in your city. I have been in the finest in this country and Europe and I find this equal to any. The acoustic properties of the house are all a singer could desire".

The Oregonian, in describing her depiction of Marguerite, returned the love:

"Few reach to a point of portrayal, either dramatically or vocally, which the roll demands. Among those few none, perhaps, so truly realizes the ideal of the master as does Miss Juch. She has the physical attributes which aid her greatly in her work -flaxen hair, the teutonic mold of features and a soft blue eye capable of a world of expression. She shows too, in her conception and execution of the role an intelligent idea of its demands which may singers have failed to exhibit".

The only sour notes to be found were in reference to some of the audience and the dazzling scene's potential to overshadow the music itself.

"It is to be regretted that quite a number of the audience came late, and thus disturbed the many who had good taste to be in their seats by or before 8 o'clock".

"The people assembled on Monday night within the walls of the spacious auditorium of the new edifice, however, seemed to be there more to see each other, to examine the beauties of the house, to pass judgement, as it were, upon the general effect of the entire ensemble, than to listen with attentive ear and receptive faculties to the operatic performance that was set before them."

The general impression of the evening though was best summed up by Henry McGuinn, Esq:

"An inspiring scene. Fair women, well dressed men, and above all immortal music. The building itself is beyond doubt a triumph of architecture".

A program from the next stop on the tour for Emma Juch; the Victoria Theater in Victoria B.C. where she played a three night engagement starting on Monday February 17th. The order of productions duplicated their Portland sequence, minus the last three operas.

The Emma Juch Grand English Opera Company continued to play the Marquam Grand to rave reviews for the next five nights and one matinee, then continued on to Victoria B.C.

Portlanders could look forward to the next extravaganza, a comic opera, The Pearl of Pekin, featuring John C. Leach, said to portray the cleverest Chinese characterizations ever seen on stage.

A rare view of the Marquam building from the north, taken at Alder and Park, including the auditorium itself, by then known as the Orepheum. It is likely this is a picture of the funeral for Portland Fire Chief David Campell in 1911. The colonial style house at Alder and 7th is the old Marquam residence "the little New England cottage." torn down in 1912.-Photo courtesy of Norm Gholston.

Afterword:

Emma Juch retired from Opera in 1894. She died in New York City in 1939.

Billy Kersands, along with "the great Gauze" and Richards & Pringle's Georgia Minstrels next appeared in Portland at the Marquam Grand Opera House on April 30 1893, with a much expanded company that featured a band and orchestra.

The troupes continued success would see them to travel in The Georgia, their own private rail car, an accoutrement which was, in the words of Lucius Beebe, usually "...the hallmark of millionaires, and mostly rich millionaires at that."

Billy Kersands own view of the demeaning aspects of minstrelsy is perhaps captured in his quote: "Son, if they hate me, I'm still whipping them because I am making them laugh". He died in 1915.

A late edition of Richards and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels played Portland for the last time at the Oriental Theater on Grand Avenue on October 27 1933.

The Marquam Grand Opera House closed on April 1 1906 on the orders of Mayor Harry Lane's Executive Board for ignoring their fire safety recommendations pertaining to entertainment establishments. The final show featured George H. Primrose's Big Minstrels, lead by veteran white minstrel George Primrose who promised "...darkey life from long befo' the war to the present day". "Nothing but minstrelsy, no acrobats, or slap stick comedians -just minstrelsy pure and simple".

The theater would reopen under numerous incarnations, often as a vaudeville house. It survived the collapse of the southeast side and demolition of the main portion of the Marquam building in 1912 and was torn down in 1922.

The south east side of the Marquam building after its collapse in 1912. The building would be demolished shortly thereafter. -Photo courtesy of Norm Gholston.

A link to a very early post on Cafe Unknown about the collapse of the Marquam Grand.

Cafe Unknown, Portland Oregon History on Facebook

Thanks to Norm Gholston for the use of his photographs, which to my shock included one of the Marquam under construction!

2011-03-23T15:28:00.001-07:00

The Guide

"Nah, I don't think I've anything worth telling. Nah, nah. I don't want to be bothered. Here's a little book... Nah, I won't let you see it -I wouldn't let my own mother see it. It's a guide to the old bawdy houses in Portland, back in '94. Here, I'll read you some of it, if you must have it."

-William (Billy) Mayer to Sarah B. Wrenn. March 23 1939.

Sarah Wrenn was having trouble establishing a rapport with the proprietor of the cigar stand in the lobby of the Davis building. When they me the day before, Billy Mayer claimed to have stories from Portland's early days, which he had already shared with a famous author. His manor and dapper clothes suggested he had been somewhat of a man about town in his day and he seemed enthusiastic to talk. She made an appointment to return the next day for an interview. Now, as they stood in the dim, mahogany lined lobby, the frequent interruptions by his customers (they all bought cigars, not cigarettes, she noted) seemed to make him clam up.

The Davis building, where Sarah Wrenn interviewed Billy Mayer on March 23 1939 was on the east side of Third Avenue, between Washington and Stark. It was built in 1886 as the Abington building and once had a central tower that made it the tallest building in Portland until 1889. The building was demolished in 1967 to make the surface parking lot that still occupies the site. -Photo courtesy of Doug Magedanz. (click on pictures to expand)

Sarah Wrenn's job with the Federal Writer's Project for the Oregon Folklore Studies program made her used to conducting interviews. She decided to pull back a bit and soft peddle the questions. After awhile he reluctantly produced a small book: The Guide, a description of amusement resorts of Portland, Oregon and vicinity.

Mayer explained as he flicked through the pages:

"There was a back on it that had advertised the old White House, out on the Willamette River, where the fine homes of Riverdale are now. There was a little race track out there -a quarter mile track I think it was -and all the bloods with fast horses used to drive out there on what was called the Macadam Road. It was the only road of that kind in the country. That's how the street leading out that way got its name. It had verandas out over the river...

Here's an advertisement of the old restaurants in town, and there's advertisements of the theaters and pool rooms too. Those old restaurants, with their private booths and dining rooms, could some tall tales. There was the Louvre, and up on West Park there was the Richards Restaurant. That was a big place, with side entrances where they served fine food and wines and liquors if every sort. There was a dining room, of course, but likely most of the paying business was in the private, small dining rooms leading off from the narrow corridors.

Mayor Harry Lane, afterwords U.S. Senator, was responsible for closing up the Richards place. He had it raided and closed. Seems some of his women relatives, or one of them at least, frequented it. There was quite a scandal at the time. Nah, I don't remember the details. Anyway, Lane closed up Richards, and shortly after all the other places with booths was closed up."

"Ah here, you might as well take the book and copy the stuff. I haven't got time to read it all..." -William (Billy) Mayer to Sarah B. Wrenn. March 23 1939.

Sarah Wrenn took the small book and hand copied the contents. The next day she submitted a typed transcript of the interview and the book's contents to the Federal Writers Project.

What follows is The Guide, as transcribed by Sarah Wrenn, with my annotations. It sheds some light on Portland's notorious "North End" with its human trafficking on an almost inconceivable scale, and a forgotten district of "amusement resorts" to the south of Burnside, whose madams were celebrated in poetic verse.

(1)

September 1894

THE GUIDE

A description of amusement resorts of Portland, Oregon and vicinity

(2)

Preface

This is a guide without avarice tainted
A "tip", as it were, before you're acquainted.
And now, my good friends, you've had my excuse;
I could have said more, but what is the use?
This thing I've "writ" and its dedicated
To strangers and those who're uninitiated

(3)

A FAST LOCALITY

In Portland is a notorious locality, known by the name of the "White Chapel District." It is the home of the most abandoned members of the demimonde, and on a small scale resembles the famous section of London, after which it is named. Within its boundaries are several hundred women, most of whom live in small one story houses or cribs. The inmates of these cribs represent every nationality, with French predominating.

On Lower Second Street can be seen Japanese and African women.

The district lies north of Ankeny street, and owing to the surveillance of Portland's admirable police department, is perfectly safe for the stranger to visit, provided he does not got too familiar with the occupants of the "cribs."

The "North End", defined in an 1915 Oregonian article as "about 4th Street, 3rd Street and Burnside, Couch, Davis and Everett streets" was regularly described by drawing comparisons with like districts elsewhere: "White Chapel," "Barbary Coast," "the Bowery," "the Bad Lands" and "the Tenderloin" were all terms used by the press in reference to the area.

Newspaper accounts place its origin to around 1889, after the area had been abandoned as a residential district. Prior to that, from the time following the Great Fire of 1873, the "Tenderloin of Portland" was on the "north side of Yamhill street and the east side of Third and scattered about a general district converging on Third and Taylor" (Oregonian, December 15 1915). Political pressure from the First Methodist Church, that was surrounded by it, caused prostitution activities to move to the North End, in "frame shacks built specifically for that purpose."

The Guide then shifts to describe activities in another area, bounded roughly by Ankeny, Fifth, Morrison and Park; a residential neighborhood under pressure by the expansion of the downtown commercial district, where madams catered to a more genteel clientele.

Four brothels are visible in this picture, a portion of a panoramic photograph taken, circa 1893, from the tower of the Oregonian building at 6th and Alder. The original Trinity Church as well as the Cyclorama building (near the right corner) can also be seen.

"Here are the verses -Sam Simpson, the old poet of Oregon is said to have written them. I don't know. But they advertised the "madams." Yes, they were all called "madam" then. I don't know why they all have "Miss" in front of their names here." -William (Billy) Mayer to Sarah B. Wrenn, March 23 1939.

(4)

MISS MINNIE REYNOLDS

89 Fifth Street

In handsome parlors, skilled to please,
Fair Minnie waits in silken ease,
And at each guest's desire supplies
Dear pleasures, hid from prying eyes.
With such a haven ever nigh
Who could pass her parlors by?

The two story white frame house near center is at 89 5th street (old numbering system), the home of Minnie Reynold's establishment. Below: the site today, (near the doorway of the Oregon Trail building).

Minnie Reynolds appeared in Portland City directories as Miss Minnie Reynolds at the same address until 1902.

MISS FANSHAW

151 Seventh Street

Lets live while we live;
We'll be dead a long while,
And tho Fortune may frown,
Fair Miss Fanshaw will smile,
If a kiss will not sooth you,
She has pleasures that will;
The chalice of passion overflowingly fill,
And your troubles and cares,
You will lightly ignore
When love's rich libation
This Charmer will pour

"Madam Fanshaw and her girls were extremely polite, but you didn't sit around there a great while without spending substantial sums of money. It was no place for the loggers, the miners and the fishermen."
-Stewart Holbrook in the Oregonian, August 9 1936.

Lida Fanshaw operated her establishment, across 7th from the opulent Marquam Grand theater until around 1900. Donald R. Nelson's piece in the September 28 2001 Portland Tribune tells what is known of her story.

The Broadway building is on the site of Lida Fanshaw's establishment at 171 7th (Broadway).

(5)

MISS MABEL MONTAGUE

94 Fifth Street Cor. Stark

Here is a mansion, of which is related
That on all this Coast it is not duplicated.
Its well-furnished parlors the fashionable seek,
For comfort is here, joined to the unique,
And the girls who respond to the visitors call,
Are the pride of Miss Mabel, and the pride of her hall.

94 5th Street (the Italianate house on the corner). The large commercial building at the end of the block is a harbinger of things to come, built on the site where the original Temple Beth Israel stood until 1888. Below; food carts on the site of Mabel Montague's house.

MISS DELLA BURIS

150 East Park, between Alder and Morrison

Here is a lady of such ways all admire
She no flattery from the best does require
Modest as a maiden, youthful,
Good-natured as she is truthful,
Della Buris has a name
All might enjoy, none can blame

"Della Buris' place was no joint. It was patronized largely by men who have since made their mark in the city's professional and business life." -Stewart Holbrook in the Oregonian, August 2 1936.

Ankeny at Park during of June 1894, three and a half blocks north of the house of Della Buris and two months before the publication of The Guide. -City of Portland Archives.

The site of 94 East Park.

MISS DORA CLARK

MISS MAUDE MORRISON

95 Sixth Street, Cor. Stark

No man in this City who is known as a sport
But will tell you he's seen and enjoyed this resort
It's a house full of beauties, whose rooms dazzling bright
Shimmer and glimmer with mirth and delight

The roof of 95 6th street is visible at the left corner, partially obscured by the flat roofed building across Stark from it. The original Trinity Church, beloved by the Portland establishment, is a block south. Below: the site of 95 6th street today.

MISS IDA AURLINGTON

No. 90 Fifth Street

To reign is beauty's queenly right,
And he is but a shabby knight,
Who is not charmed, aye wholly won
by lovely Ida Aurlington,
Whose grace of manner and of form
Takes every manly heart by storm.

Ida Aurlington's house was directly across 5th from Minnie Reynolds, between the large commercial building and Mabel Montague's house on the corner. Below, the site today.

(6)

MADAM FLORA (likely Flora Hoyt)

130 Fifth Street

The gay rose gardens are (illegible)
But blooming Flora is still here
To make us quite forget the rose
Has sighed her gentle adios.

The peaked roof of Madam Flora's appears beside the flat roof on the right side of the picture. A block east, the low slung building with awnings is the Louvre Restaurant, between the elaborate Washington Block and the four story Holton House building, where the Louvre eventually moved to. Below, the site of 130 5th.

DORA LYNN

If you're out for a lark, or that is your passion,
Just call on this house, so lately in fashion.
With its fairy like nymphs and Dora Lynn its queen,
Where privacy, rest, and all is serene.
There are a great many Doras, but I write this one down
As the best one that ever has lived in this town.

(End)

In his 1936 Oregonian series on Portland's moral crusades, Stewart Holbrook states the "parlor house" operators were raided by police in an 1895 campaign that resulted in no convictions, but the long term affect of which was to consolidate prostitution activities to the North End by 1906.

Sarah B. Wrenn first appeared in the 1905 city directory as a stenographer for the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. She likely married a Bert Ramsey in 1910, a union that ended within two years. From 1912 on, she would appear sporadically in city directories, sometimes with long gaps in between. In 1939 she lived in the Elk's building on SW 15th.

Most of the work of the WPA Federal Writers Project in Oregon was published anonymously. The recently digitized American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1937 , that this piece draws upon shows Sarah Wrenn's keen eye for detail, both in the description of the interviewee and surroundings. She would use earlier interviews to build upon her questions. Two months after Billy Mayer mentioned the White House, she brought it up to another subject, who added that there was a second, less elaborate resort known as the Red House on the Macadam Road, and the road once had a toll gate.

In the early 1950s Sarah Wrenn worked for the Portland Chamber of Commerce. She last appears in the 1960 directory.

It is unlikely that a copy of The Guide exists outside of her transcription.

William (Billy) Mayer first appears in Portland directories in 1905 as a clerk at a boarding house (there are numerous prior entries but it is impossible to ascertain which one is him). In 1909 he ran a billiards hall at 390 East Morrison, that moved to 113 4th in 1911. It moved once again to 133 1/2 in the Couch building in 1917. He closed the pool hall in 1936 but continued to sell cigars in the Couch building's lobby. He moved to the Davis building in 1939. In 1944 he was managing the lunch counter at the Miami Club at 610 SW 4th. His last appearance in the city directories is in 1950, with his wife Ina, whom he married in 1918.

Stewart Holbrook (1893-1964). Billy Mayer claimed to have shared his stories with a "famous author." Stewart Holbrook, a raconteur who rigorously combed Portland's streets for anecdote, is a likely suspect. If so, Billy Mayer could have been a source for Holbrook in his Oregonian columns and works such as The Portland Story (1950).

Samuel L. Simpson (1845-1899). Did Oregon's first Poet Laureate, author of Beautiful Willamette, write the verses in The Guide as mentioned by Billy Mayer? In Oregon Literature (1899) John B. Horner refers to the troubled Simpson, born of a prominent family and beset by alcohol problems, as "the Edgar Allen Poe of Oregon." A denizen of journalism's Grub Street, familiar with all strata of Portland society, the verses in The Guide could have been just another job to make ends meet.

"The Louvre Nude" once hung in the Louvre Restaurant on 4th Street, an advertiser in The Guide. After the restaurant closed the painting disappeared. Years later it emerged from the closet of a prominent Portland woman whose husband had acquired it from Louvre owner Theodore Kruse, in payment for a cigar bill. Walter Holman, the owner of Jake's Famous Crawfish, bought it in the early 1960s. Initially covered by a red and white tablecloth, the painting was finally unveiled at Jake's on April 27 1962. It hangs above the bar there to this day.

Thanks to Doug Magedanz for the use of the picture of the Abington / Davis building and Mark Barthemer for tipping me off to the "Louvre Nude"!

Now on Facebook!

One of my frustrations (along with not having enough time in the day) is that there is no good way to mix updates, short pieces and arcane facts with the posts on this page. So now, Cafe Unknown has a facebook page where I can post finds, like this wonderful stereoview of the the Great Light Way that I purchased on ebay. I can also give a heads up when a new post is finished. Talk Portland History, badger me to get back to work if I take to long between posts, post early and post often... Enjoy!

2011-03-06T09:33:00.000-08:00

Restoration

Portland had been incorporated for two years in 1853 when W.S. Ladd commissioned Absalom Hallock to design a brick building on Front street, between Washington and Stark. The use of brick added a sense of permanence to the cluster of white-washed wooden, frame and false-fronted buildings rising between the river and the towering fir trees. It was a vote of confidence for Portland's long term prospects.

Absalom Hallock arrived two years earlier. He went into business as an architect, the city's first, on July 21 1851. A year after the Ladd commission he began to incorporate cast-iron into the buildings he designed, which encouraged a modular construction of repetitive elements and tall entryways and windows to let in light. At the same time Hallock became the Portland representative of the Phoenix Iron Works of San Francisco.

His own building, in partnership with contractor William McMillan, was constructed on the northwest corner of Front and Oak in 1857.

The Hallock and McMillan building was typical of the eighteen brick structures built or retrofitted with cast-iron that Absalom Hallock designed in Portland prior to the Civil War. Its fabricated columns and arches allowed a light filled work space. (click on images to expand..)

Minor White photograph of the corner of Front and Oak, circa 1939, shortly before the remodel that would radically alter the Hallock and McMillan building. The neighboring Fechheimer building (1885, existent) is followed by the Snow building, likely designed by Hallock, torn down shortly after the photograph was taken. The last building on the block appears to be in the process of being demolished.

The Hallock and McMillan building is the oldest commercial structure in Portland. In its one hundred fifty four years, it has survived numerous floods and spared the reach of the Great Fire of 1872. The Harbor Drive freeway destroyed its grand descendants across Front Avenue and ramps off the Morrison Bridge, accompanied by surface parking lots, cut a wide swath through its neighbors to the south. Since the 1940s its historic significance has been obscured by a remodel that altered its east facade. This is about to change.

The Hallock and McMillan building has faced down floods, fire and freeway.

In December the Hallock and McMillan building was purchased by developer John Russell, with the goal of restoring it to its original appearance.

With his company, Russell Development, John Russell is known for major projects in Portland, such as Pacwest Center and the renovation of the 200 Market Building, bestowed America's first LEED award for sustainability in the Existing Multi-Tenant category. Less known is his work on a smaller scale; a decades long restoration of a quarter block bounded by Front (Naito Parkway), Oak and First. It can be seen as a template for the revival of the Skidmore / Old Town National Historic District, which, he states, could be made the best place in Portland to live and work. It is a sentiment born of direct personal experience.

The Delschneider building on Oak street (1859) is Portland's second oldest commercial structure. Its third floor was added in 1876. The Hallock and McMillan building neighbors it to the east.

The Delschneider building was "an empty pigeon roost" when John Russell purchased it in 1974. Inspired by the brick-built historic Beacon Hill neighborhood in Boston, where he lived while in grad school, he renovated the building for mixed use by adding an apartment space on the third floor. Upon completion, he and his family moved in. His children still count it as their favorite residence while growing up.

In 1980 he acquired the Fechheimer building (1885), an early preservation success in Portland that had been restored by Ralph Walstrom and Jeff Holbrook. At the same time he inquired into purchasing the Hallock and McMillan building, the start of what would play out to be a thirty year long series of conversations over dinner with its owner, Peter Corvallis.

The Freimann Building (Oak street facing segment) neighbors the Delshneider building to the west.

His next acquisition ushered a historic reconstruction that could have positive potential implications for redevelopment in Skidmore / Old Town, an area that has been blighted for decades by acres of surface parking lots.

First and Oak, prior to 2004. -Portland Maps.

The run down building, on the corner of First and Oak was purchased, in two segments in 1999 and 2004, to arrest the decay of property that neighbored the Delschneider building. Shortly thereafter, Portland historian Donald R. Nelson found a 19th century illustration of the corner. It was realized that, beneath layers of Roman brick and stucco, was entombed remnants of a 1880s building. Using the picture as a guide, Russell decided to return it to its original appearance.

In the course of restoration work, it became evident that little of the building's original material was in suitable condition to be reincorporated. This meant the project would go forward without incentives such as Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits from the National Park Service or the Oregon Special Assessment program from the State Historic Preservation Office, eligibility of which is set by rules drawn from a distinctly western view of preservation that places a high value on original fabric. An eastern view, born of the use of less permanent materials, might place less; where a temple built of wood or bamboo can be seen as five hundred years old, with most of its components dating back only a quarter century, yet suffer no loss of authenticity.

Genuine upper-strata Rocky Butte basalt.

New hand-made brick from South Carolina was used to duplicate the original. The damaged iron corner column, previously hidden, was removed, measured and reproduced. A lone surviving piece of stone work on the foundation level presented a singular problem. It came from the long defunct Rocky Butte quarry which provided rock for many local buildings such as the Hotel Portland. The basalt's light color placed it from the early years of the quarry's excavations; as depth increased the rock darkened. Incredibly, matching stone was found, available from the foundation of the Simon Benson house, made surplus after its move to Portland State University due to differences in site profile.

The building is a meticulous recreation of when Friemann's Restaurant and Cafe occupied the corner in 1889. It illustrates the potential of infill that is respectful to its surroundings, should the parking lots in the area be redeveloped.

The Hallock and McMillan restoration. -Emerick Architects.

As in the case of his earlier earlier restorations, painstaking attention to historic detail is being applied to the Hallock and McMillan building. The assembled team for the project: Emerick Architects and Bremik Construction, in consultation with Jessica Engeman of Venerable Development and architect and historian Bill Hawkins, author of The Grand Era of Cast-Iron Architecture in Portland Oregon, have as their goal to returning it to its original nineteenth century appearance. Like prior restorations throughout Skidmore / Old Town, the missing cast-iron pieces will be fabricated in fiberglass or aluminum. Work on the project began immediately upon Russell assuming possession.

The Feccheimer and Hallock & McMillan buildings.

John Russell's quartet of buildings, two of which were built before Oregon was a state, provide a tangible link to Portland's early past. Their incredible survival, against all odds, is rivaled only by the amount of care and effort spent on their restoration. With his patient pursuit of authenticity, he has shown how Skidmore / Old Town's potential can be drawn upon to revive an area that can indeed be made the best place in Portland to live and work. It a long term vision that would be familiar to W.S. Ladd and Absalom Hallock.

Sincere thanks to John Russell for sitting down with me. Peggy Moretti of the Historic Preservation League of Oregon and, as always, Bill Hawkins, a constant source of information and inspiration for this website.

The Hallock & McMillan and Fechheimer buildings. October 31 1953. Marion Dean Ross photograph. University of Oregon Libraries, digital collections.

The Delschneider building, before the purchase and renovation by John Russell that restored to it the missing cornice. Also visible is the rear segment of the building on First and Oak (Freimann building) prior to its being stuccoed (the First Avenue facing segment was covered up in Roman brick). -Marion Dean Ross photograph. University of Oregon Libraries, digital collections.

Portland's notable buildings, 1858, just five years after Absalom Hallock designed the first brick building in the city for W.S. Ladd. The Hallock & McMillan building is at the top, center.

2011-01-28T14:06:00.000-08:00

Alder Street Station

"For all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: It might have been!" -John Greenleaf Whittier

Less prosaic, but more tantalizing: It almost was.

In the long run, Ben Holladay was right; grass would grow on Front street. At the time of his infamous quip, delivered as he touted his plans for East Portland, it seemed unlikely. Lined by grand iron fronted merchant houses, such as Starr, Allan and Lewis and most importantly, the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, Front street drew commerce directly from the river and pushed it into the heart of the city. Its enterprises were at the root of the Portland establishment's fortunes.

In the century that followed, Front would morph from street, to avenue, to parkway and witness the rise and fall of the Harbor Drive freeway and the birth of Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Prior to both, a very different waterfront nearly came into being.

By the second decade of the the twentieth century Portland had turned its back on the river. Behind the impressive facades, the warehouses and wharfs of the old city had become a decrepit, disused warren as the harbor moved down stream. In 1919 the City Council called for a massive reworking of the waterfront. The resulting plan, by City Engineer Olaf Laurgaard, was released in 1923.

The Report of City Engineer, Pursuant to Resolution No. 11130, With Plans and Estimates For Water Front Project , March 29 1923 was an ambitious recasting of the riverfront that sought to address multiple municipal ills. For flood control and fire abatement, the old docks were to be removed and a sea wall installed from Jefferson to Glisan streets, back-filled by material dredged from the Willamette. Behind the wall a new interceptor sewer would serve downtown. The area from the Hawthorne to Morrison bridges was set aside for a public market. Between the Morrison and Steel bridges a new wholesale district of large, modern warehouses would be built, accessed by trucks from the west and rail from the east.

The proposed public market at the foot of the Hawthorne Bridge.
-Multnomah County Library (non-circulating collection). Photo courtesy of Alexander Craghead.

The report's transportation amenities balanced auto, rail and pedestrian modes. Bridge approaches were to be raised. Madison, Morrison, Burnside, Glisan and Front widened. Thousands of parking spaces were to be provided to alleviate downtown congestion. On top of the sea wall, a twenty five foot wide esplanade would "create a very pleasing recreational walk for the citizens of the city."

Chief among the proposal was a consolidated terminal for the region's interurban electric rail lines and ocean going travelers to be located on First and Alder, with a breezeway over Front to the river.

Alder Street Station. (click on images to expand). -Multnomah County Library (non circulating desk). Photo courtesy of Alexander Craghead.

Portland was served by three interurban lines: The Portland Railway Light and Power Company and its affiliates ran to Troutdale, Estacada, Oregon City, Mount Angel and over the Interstate Bridge to Vancouver Washington. The Oregon Electric Railway served Woodburn, Salem, Eugene, Albany and Forest Grove. Southern Pacific's "Red Electrics" connected Portland to Lake Oswego, Hillsboro, Newburg, McMinnville and Corvallis. The new terminal would provide a single boarding point for all three networks and remove the trains from downtown streets.

"At the present time a great deal of time is lost by these interurban lines crossing the business district of the City. As much time is consumed in traversing the business district as is consumed in traveling 15 or 20 miles after the City limits have been reached."
-The Report of City Engineer, Pursuant to Resolution No. 11130, With Plans and Estimates For Water Front Project

The "Red Electric" steel cars boarded at Union Station, while the Oregon Electric operated from North Bank Station in what is now the Pearl District and from a station near the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge. The PRL&P Lines loaded at First and Washington.

At river's edge the terminal would also serve ocean bound traffic such as from the Pacific Steamship Company, aka the Admiral Line.
-Images courtesy of Timetable Images , Bjorn Larsson.

The plan called for the Red Electrics and the Oregon Electric to share the latter's tracks out of town to a point near Burlingame. The vacated Red Electric right of way would then be used as a new route for the Pacific Highway into Portland.

The placement of the terminal, market, esplanade and parking facilities was anticipated to generate large amounts of pedestrian traffic that would revitalize the lower downtown district as people crossed back and forth to the city center. But the components of the plan were never to fully coalesce.

It is tempting to view the Laurgaard plan as another instance of Portland dreaming big and spending small, alongside the Olmstead parks plan, Bennet's city beautiful re-design, the initial response to the Robert Moses report and the stadium proposals of the 1960s. Much of the plan though was implemented in relatively a short time. Work on the sea wall, interceptor sewer and esplanade, Oregon's largest public works project to that date, was completed in less than four years. Bridge access improvements, street widening and a public market were finished within a decade.

The proposed sewer was hardly a panacea. Back ups into downtown basements ended as hundreds of makeshift outlets into the river were replaced- by a single overflow.
-City of Portland Archives.

The Public Market building opened in 1933 on the site proposed by the Laurgaard Plan. Initially a success, its popularity with customers and vendors soon dropped off. It closed in 1942. From 1948 to 1961 it was home to the Oregon Journal. The building was demolished in 1968.
-City of Portland Archives.

A street level view of the Portland Public Market and the smaller Sea Wall Public Market at Taylor and Front Avenue, prior to 1943. The railroad tracks were freight only, operated by the United Railway, an Oregon Electric Railway affiliate.

Only the interurban / ocean terminal and the wholesale district proposals were not acted upon at all. With each recasting of the plan through the 1920s the rail component shrank as the popularity of the automobile grew. By 1930 it was gone. In 1933 the Pacific Highway would be built on the former Red Electric right of way as Barbur Blvd. In the early 1940s the waterfront would be used for transportation, in the form of the Harbor Drive freeway.

Portland takes on a Le Corbusier tinge with the 1932 Bartholomew Plan. Intermediate between rail and freeway, it featured a park along the river.

What if the report had been fully implemented? Any counterfactualist historic revelry has to be tempered by trends already in place at the time. As attractive as a regional electric rail network emanating from downtown would be today, Alder Street Station was unlikely to have arrested the decline of the interurban systems in the 1920s and 1930s.

Perhaps the city envisioned in the Laurgaard plan is best viewed along the lines of the many Portland's dreamed in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, familiar elements recast to form alternate realities -made all the more intriguing by how close it actually came to pass.

The proposed waterfront of 1923, a fold out in the report.
-Multnomah County Library (non-circulating collection). Photo courtesy of Alexander Craghead.

The Portland Railway Light and Power (later the Portland Railroad and Terminal Division of Portland Traction) lines continued to load at First and Washington for another thirty three years, until its tracks were removed from the Hawthorne Bridge, cutting access to downtown. The rare view above was possible only between 1954, when the Dekum Block (1871) was demolished to make a parking lot, and the end of downtown interurban service in September 1956.

The surface lot expanded upon the city's first, on the site of the Labbe Block, immediately next door. It is still there.

2010-11-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

Cyclorama!

It appears on the peripheral in photographs of Portland from the 1890s, a large circular building on the block bounded by Third, Fourth, Pine and Ash. A roundhouse perhaps, or a giant carousel? A Sanborn Insurance map from 1889 provides a name, Cyclorama, but not its function. Could it have been a velodrome?

A Portland City Directory from the same year gives another hint:

The Cyclorama (Gettysburg) west side of 3rd, north of PIne.

Gettysburg; a clue leading to a entertainment phenomenon that transported audiences across space and time to distant vistas, surrounding them with a 360 degree view. Cyclorama: it was the IMAX theater of its day.

The Robert R. Thompson mansion on Third street between PIne and Ash.

A decade earlier, the upper end of Third street was home to a wealthy neighborhood of Portland's financial elite, anchored by the neighboring mansions of Oregon Steam Navigation magnates John C. Ainsworth and Robert R. Thompson that faced each other across Pine. A letter from Oregon pioneer Jesse Applegate, written from Yoncalla to Ainsworth on September 3rd 1869 hints at the genteel elegance of the district, just four years after the end of the Civil War:

"In my morning walks through the city, I remarked on the good taste displayed in the selection and arrangement of the trees, shrubs and other ornaments, and their adaptation to mansion and grounds the were intended to beautify- and when I learned the place was yours I promised myself the pleasure of a closer inspection."

The John C Ainsworth and Robert R Thompson (far right) mansions.

As downtown expanded inland, the enclave was pressured by commercial uses. The arrival of the grandly named Transcontinental Street Railway horse-car line in 1883 signaled its end as a bucolic retreat, as noted in the Portland City Directory of 1884:

"A most remarkable change in the present volume, as compared to its predecessors, is the removal of many families whose names are familiar in the history of Portland from the localities which, but a year or two ago, were reckoned to be the most aristocratic and desirable residences in Portland, North Third and Fourth streets, which were the sites of our most elegant residences, have been abandoned to business..."

As the well-to-do vacated Third, a new exclusive neighborhood of palatial homes emerged on the west side of the Couch Addition, centered on 19th street. Ainsworth and Thompson had departed the region entirely, opting for Oakland and San Francisco respectively. Not everyone left. Ben Holladay, former master of flash and finance, ruined in the crash of 1873, remained, stranded, in his Italian-villa styled house on the south west corner of Third and Stark until his death in 1887.

Ben Holladay, exile on Third street.

By that time Third street was a very different place. Banks and business blocks were followed by hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues such as Cordray's Musee & Theatre which advertised opera, comedy and drama. Also slated for Third was the latest in entertainment extravagance; a cyclorama.

The Boston Cyclorama.

Cycloramas were a sort of nineteenth century virtual reality, which transfixed audiences with huge wrap-around 360 degree paintings, lighting, effects, narration and life-size diorama elements, transporting them to historic events, often battles. Gettysburg was a common subject (appearing at Gettysburg, Boston, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver and doubtless other locations). The Crucifixion of Christ (Buffalo), the Siege of Paris (Melbourne Australia), the Battle of Atlanta (Atlanta), the Battle of Sedan (Toronto), Waterloo (Melbourne again) and Jerusalem (Quebec) were among many topics portrayed.

The Portland Cyclorama Company was established in 1887. The company's well established board members consisted of L.L. Hawkins, an Ainsworth banking partner, Harvey W. Scott, editor of the Oregonian, Rufus Mallory, a former U.S. Congressman, Geroge P. Frank, a future Portland mayor, Byron P. Cardwell, a member of the Board of Police Commissioners, C.W. Robey, a former postmaster and F.N. Shurtliff.

Midway through the year, construction began on a large three story brick building on the block bordered by Third, Fourth, Pine and Ash, on the grounds of Ainsworth's Oregon Steam Navigation associate Robert R. Thompson's mansion, which had been subdivided into rooms to rent.

The Portland Cyclorama in the early 1890s, part of a warren of interconnected buildings that included the old R.R. Thompson mansion (three peaked windows facing south). Directly across Pine is the Ainsworth mansion (lower right hand corner) then leased to the Arlington Club.

A portion of the existent Battle of Gettysburg cyclorama at Gettysburg Pennsylvania.

To anchor the spectacle, the popular Battle of Gettysburg cyclorama painting by French artist Paul Philoppoteaux, the original of which was debuted in Chicago in 1883, was chosen.

Portland's copy, weighing twelve thousand pounds, arrived December 7 1887, stood on end and by use of a thirty five foot high wheeled tower on tracks, slowly unrolled and hung. Two artists then arrived to add finishing touches such as clouds and smoke to the painting.

The Portland Cyclorama opened to wide acclaim, speeches by notables such as the Reverend Thomas Lamb Elliot and rave reviews on December 29 1887.

"The building in which it is exhibited is circular and the painting covers the entire circuit of the walls from top to bottom. Light is admitted from the roof and a canopy over the platform in the center where spectators stand, cuts the line of vision just below the top of the painting.

The platform is reached by a subterranean passage and a winding stair case and when a person emerges on this platform it is precisely as if he had risen from under the ground in the center of the battlefield of Gettysburg, when the battle was at its height. Nothing is to be seen to show that one is inside a building, no wall, door, window or floor."
-The Morning Oregonian, December 30 1887.

To further the illusion, optical effects, real stone walls, wood fences and other features were blended out of the scene into the viewing area, where a narrator explained the unfolding battle at the moment of Pickett's Charge.

"With entire assurance it may be said that, of the great battle pictures on exhibition in various cities, none surpasses the "Gettysburg" now completed and thrown open to the public in Portland. Everyone who has seen this painting and the "Gettysburg" in Chicago pronounces the Portland picture greatly the superior one."
-The Morning Oregonian, December 30 1887.

Hours were from Ten to Ten with a fifty cent charge of admission (25 cents for children).

It was a immediate region-wide success. Special showings, such as one for a group of 150 Vancouver area school children and a rail excursion from Salem were common. Letters to the editor poured in, asking for the proper pronunciation of cyclorama. A Gettysburg veteran, wounded in the battle, chose to be married there, the ceremony held in front of the place on the painting where he received his injury. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce viewed it accompanied by an interpreter and a army general.

By the middle of 1891 the novelty had worn off and the need to revamp the spectacle was apparent. A live "battle" was added, acted in the foreground with cannon fire and muskets. At the finish of the narration the lights would dim and a lightning storm would commence, so real that some patrons were said to reach for there umbrellas. A military band closed the performances. The Oregonian noted that under such management, the Cyclorama would continue to draw for several years to come.

It was an optimistic assessment. On February 28 1892 admission was cut in half. The Oregonian noted that the rates would be for a short time only. Within five days it closed. The Portland Cyclorama had lasted four years and two months.

The Cyclorama building (numbered #198) appears in this post 1893 drawing of downtown Portland.

The building quickly re-opened as the Past Time Athletic Club, a 5,000 seat boxing arena ran by former welterweight champion Jack Dempsey "the Nonpareil" (not to be confused with the heavyweight champion of the same name). The Past Time was the scene of numerous bouts, including three that featured Portland's own Mysterious Billy Smith, on his way to claiming the welterweight championship of 1893.

The Mysterious Billy Smith, Welterweight Champion of the World. Known as one of the dirtiest fighters ever, he was disqualified 13 times, a pro boxing record that holds to this day. He retired to Portland, for many years owning a bar named "The Champions Rest" until his death in 1937.

The roof of the Cyclorama building can be seen, lower center in this picture, circa 1895. The cupola of the Pioneer Courthouse (post office) and the tower of the First Congregational, both still in existence can be seen, along with vanished Perkins Hotel, Hotel Portland, the Marquam on Morrison and the Oregonian's tower on Alder.

The building was reincarnated a second time in 1893 as the Alhambra Music Hall, based on the style of a London Music Hall, and a third time in 1894 as the Trocadero Theatre, a "high class vaudeville.

Blei's Trocadero, as it was also known, featured such national acts as the Mademoiselle Jaguarina, who specialized in knife and sword exercises, Zetta Tuforne, the operatic vocalist, Peppi Sternheim, "the Tyrolean Warbler", Miss Vera Gray, "refined song and dance specialties," Stuart "the male Patti," billed as America's greatest female impersonator, Gus Bruno, "one of the greatest American comedians," Billy Emerson, "the famous popular minstrel" and Sandow the Strongman, aka The Modern Hercules.

Based on San Francisco's Tivoli Theater, the opening performances would close with "the great burlesque of Monte Cristo."

Stuart "the Male Patti"

Sandow the Strongman (poster from the Trocadero in New York').

The Trocadero lasted but one extravagant year. After its close the building went into decline with a series of devolving uses, subdivided for retail space, or opened up for a dog show. In 1909 it was in use as a carpenters shop when the Thompson Estate stated the site would be the home of a new 2,500 seat theater. By the next year, the plans had changed and it was announced a $750,000 hotel would be built instead.

The Cyclorama, aka the Past Time Athletic Club, Alhambra Music Hall and the Trocadero was demolished in September 1910, to make way for the Multnomah Hotel, today known as the Embassy Suites.

"What and where was the Portland cyclorama?"
-Trivia question in the Oregonian, June 6 1927.

Its been awhile
since my last post. The usual summer frenzy was followed by a scare as our toddler had to have cataract surgery on his left eye. The months of check-ups, tests, second opinions and worry were not conducive to research and writing. The fine work of the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU has brought about a happy conclusion (!)

A surprising relic at the Elk's Children's Eye Clinic at the Casey Eye Institute, a stained glass window commemorating the grand Elks Convention of 1912, from the original Elks building at 7th (Broadway) and Stark, which I wrote about in "A Summer Extravaganza."

Be sure and check out Our Portland Story, a project that pairs essays by Portland writers about what they love about Portland with local designers to create a unique book that is great portrait of the city, just in time for the holidays. My essay, Old Portland, is on page 46. Available at Powells, numerous local stores and direct.

2010-07-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

For the Love of Cars

We know how the story ends. Portland's first downtown, its iron-fronted steam punk version of an old European city, done in by apathy, bridge approaches, a freeway and most of all, surface parking lots. By the 1970s, less than thirty of the two hundred seventy cast iron buildings downtown remained. But how did it begin? When did Portland start to trade its most unique built feature for acres and acres of pay by the hour asphalt?

Portland 1968, the city that parks. The site of the original downtown, looking south. Note the former Public Market building, surrounded by the Harbor Drive freeway, in the left upper corner during the final stages of demolition. (click on images to expand)

The same area, this time looking to the north, in 1935. The brand new Public Market building is to the right.

Portland's ascendancy as "the Metropolis of the Pacific Northwest" was coincident with the rise of cast-iron as a building material for commercial structures. Viewed today as old fashioned, its manufacture allowed modular construction, modern in concept. Its vertical strength encouraged narrow supports permitting light filled spaces not previously possible. Local fabrication (for the most part) and the relative inexpensiveness of material allowed block upon block of ornate construction in a frontier city without the population to support the number of artisans required by traditional methods.

Front Avenue, looking towards Ash in 1939, Minor White photograph. Everything on the right was torn down to make Harbor Drive in the early 1940s. The Smith Block (1872) on the left is one of the few cast iron survivors on Front (the southbound lanes of Naito Parkway). It houses Waterfront Bicycle Rentals.

The era of cast-iron ended in 1889. Downtown shifted west, away from the river. The old "European section" would become known as the Wholesale or Commission District and was home to Chinatown, Japantown, a Gypsy community, second hand stores and Skid Road.

Portland in 1935. The cast-iron fronted riverside downtown blended into to brick and sandstone of its 1890s successor, centered on 3rd, followed to the west by the gleaming terracotta city center of the early twentieth century. A close examination finds three surface parking lots.

The December 4 1933 issue of the Oregonian announced the pending demolition of the Labbe Building on the north east corner of Second and Washington. Tenants were given thirty days to vacate the premises.

"The building as it stands affords some classic examples of the building art of the day. The entrance halls, stairways and elevator shaft display fine hand carved woodwork, but one of the most striking things remaining is the letter box rows on each side of the entrance hall. These letter boxes look like dove coats, each with its frosted glass door and slot above the mail to be dropped into the proper place." -The Morning Oregonian, December 4 1933.

Completed in 1880, the Labbe Building was the first four story commercial building in the city and the first with an elevator. It was designed by Warren H. Williams, whom a good portion of Portland's surviving cast-iron buildings are attributed to.

The Labbe brothers: Blaise, Antoine and John arrived from France in 1863. In 1865 they started a grocery business at Second and Washington. Fifteen years later constructed their commercial building across the street. It was regarded as the center of business and professional life as well as housing Morse's Palace, the city's most prominent art gallery.

Pictures of the Labbe Building are hard to come by, but it appears to the far right with a red and white awning in a postcard from 1909. The next building on the right, across Second, is the Waldo Block, which still exists, (with modified upper windows) home to Mama Mia Trattoria.

The Oregonian article was mum on what was to replace the building. In the areal photograph from 1935, the site is a surface parking lot, marked by fresh white paint on the neighboring wall. It has been one ever since.

The lot at Second and Washington is in the center of the picture. By the time of the photograph (1935) it had been joined a block to the north by a second lot on the site of the Wienhard Building (1872) on Second and Oak.

2nd and Washington, 2010.

Just west of the old riverfront downtown, on Stark between Third and Fourth, was a third fresh surface parking lot in 1935, the site of the Chamber of Commerce Building.

Built in 1893, the Chamber of Commerce Building was at the center of the new inland downtown developing on Third Street. Six stories high with a two story tower, it housed three banks on its first floor, a bowling alley, billiard rooms and a saloon. It featured an auditorium that was host to numerous political conventions and in 1905 was headquarters for the committee to organize the Lewis and Clark Exposition.

The lower floors of the building were submerged by the flood of 1894 and the top floors consumed by fire in 1906. Two additional stories were added in 1910, eliminating the tower.

From Fourth and Stark, after the addition of two stories in 1910.

Shortly after its completion the building was foreclosed upon during the financial crisis of 1894. It had numerous owners before being purchased by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, who's St Paul based owners decided to demolish it in 1933.

"We have made a thorough examination of the possible uses of the building and found that the cost of modernizing would be too great and that it would be better to tear it down and prepare the ground for possible development of that district in the future."
-Charles A. Hart, Attorney for the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway in the Oregonian. October 8 1933.

Third and Stark, July 16 2010. Still waiting for that development.

The demolition of the Portland Hotel in 1950 can be said to have been our Penn Station moment, when Portlanders began to realize the intrinsic value of what was being lost was greater than the short term gain brought by its replacement. An early voicing of the sentiment however can be found by reporter Don Giesy in the Oregonian, December 17 1933 writing about the Chamber of Commerce Building:

"The fact that the building is rich in history is of no consequence. That the building has tenanted a great many of our state leaders who have gained national prominence is of no import. Nor are we concerned with the almost human personality of the building. Were it standing in a European city, it would probably be used for 50 or 100 more years; but, to Impatient America, it is merely a symbol of a former era and is standing in the path of the juggernaut. Progress."

The site of the Chamber of Commerce Building (center), a brand new lot in 1935. The newly revealed wall of the neighboring Sherlock Building finds use as a giant billboard for 7up.

The demolition of the Chamber of Commerce Building went on into 1935. A surface parking lot immediately followed. By then a cycle was in place. As more businesses left the old downtown, the time lag toward a downward adjustment in property taxes added to the expense of keeping a vacant building. Demolition removed the buildings from the tax rolls. The rewards of surface parking lots, initially seen as a low cost stop gap before new development, soon became apparent. Three quarters of a century later the first lots are still in place, as are the vast majority of those that followed.

Four years later, in 1939, the lot on the site of the Labbe Block (partially visible at center, far left) has gained neighbors.

July 2010. Close examination of the billboard shows that it is likely painted on a wall from the Labbe building, still pressed against its neighbor. If so, it is a final remnant.

but just maybe there is another...

The Case of the Missing Weather Vane

Stewart Holbrook, Northwest literary giant, wrote in his Down Portland By-Paths column in the Oregonian on October 30 1934:

"Folks who depended on the weather vane on top of the now demolished Labbe Building to tell them which way the wind lay are missing it. Most of them I judge, had no particular reason for wanting to know; just a habit.

It really was a swell vane. The spreadeagle which topped it was very lifelike. I discovered that when the building was torn down Antione Labbe* got the eagle and the vane. He tells me that after half a century the eagle, the arrow and the quadrant are all in excellent condition. He doesn't know whether or not it had been gilded since it was originally put in place, but the gold leaf is perfect.

The old eagle must have served as a mark for sharpshooters at some time or other, for there are several holes in the bird, obviously made by rifle bullets.

The eagle has a wingspread of 3 feet, the arrow is 4 feet long, and the entire vane stands 6 feet high. I asked Mr. Labbe what he was going to do with it. He said he thought he'd put it on top of his house. Wants to do something with it and that's probably where it will wind up, to tell Mr. Labbe and his neighbors how she blows. Until somebody puts another vane in the district where Labbe Building used to stand, there will be people, a lot of them, who will have to find something else to look at every day."

So where is it?

A check with the city directory of 1934 gave me Antione Labbe's address. I went there and asked the current owner about it. There is no sign of the vane on the property. Did it perish in a war time scrap drive, or perhaps is buried in someones garage? Does it top another building to this day? If anyone knows, or if there are any descendants of the Labbe brothers who would like to talk with me about this, or another story that I am currently working on that pertains to the brothers, my email address is the letter d followed by my last name @comcast.net.

*(the second Antione Labbe).

In A Summer Extravaganza (alternate title; The Glorious Results of Too Much Time on eBay) I asked where the following picture was taken:

The answer: from an upper floor above Big Town Hero, on the corner of 11th and Morrison. Look closely, next to the middle stop light a small portion of the Baptist church tower that figures prominently in the 1911 picture nearly hidden by the building in front of it.

Now, lets go find that weather vane...

2010-06-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

A Summer Extravaganza

The 1912 Rose Festival began an extended celebratory season that reached its zenith in July, when two national delegations and thousands of revelers converged upon Portland. For seven days downtown was transformed, ablaze in light, with all the epic spectacle and impermanence of a Cecil B. DeMille studio back lot.

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks had selected Portland as the site of their national convention, their "Grand Reunion." The city responded with the largest civic extravaganza since the Lewis and Clark Exposition of 1905, a massive display of pageantry that reflected the importance of the fraternal order in the life of the city.

"Remember the Dates," the Rose Festival and the Grand Reunion.

The Elks Building on the north east corner of 7th (later Broadway) and Stark. Today the corner is home to the United States National Bank building which was constructed in two sections, the first, that faces 6th, in 1917 and the second, that faces Broadway, (which necessitated the demolition of the Elks Building) in 1923.

"THOUSANDS IN CITY
Railroads Report Between 85 and 100 Extra Trains"
-The Morning Oregonian, July 8 1912.

Representatives from the country's 1,260 lodges arrived by the trainload at Union Station. The delegates, collectively referred to as "Bill" were greeted by their Portland hosts. Accompanied by bands playing and the singing of the song Hello Bill, they were paraded to their designated hotels. One hundred thirty five men and women from Sacramento alone were billeted at the Portland Hotel. Seventy five attendees from Chicago were based in the Imperial. At the Multnomah Hotel, the thunderous entrance of the delegation from LaGrande was said to have rattled the chandeliers. The arrivals were so frequent that the processions up 6th street were practically nonstop.

The Elks were not the only visitors. Into the maelstrom of riotous bonhomie arrived yet another cohort of true believers: the suffragettes. Hundreds of eastern delegates from the General Federation of Woman's Clubs convention held in San Francisco were returning home. At Union Station their special train was greeted by large crowds of Portland supporters who escorted them to the Multnomah Hotel for a week long stay in support of the Oregon campaign for Votes for Women.

The Multnomah Hotel (today known as the Embassy Suites) which hosted both the suffragette delegation and the chandelier shaking Elks from LaGrande.

The next arrivals came by sea. The battleship USS Oregon, still decades away from its role as a Portland waterfront museum piece, arrived with its attendant flotilla to its own boisterous welcome.

On the first day alone of its visit to Portland, five thousand visitors were ferried mid river to the battleship Oregon.

Conventioneers, sailors, suffragettes and locals swarmed the city with crisscrossing synergy. The same decorated interurban cars of the Portland Railway Light and Power Company rushed the suffragettes to the Chautauqua Grounds in Milwaukie and the Elks to a truly gigantic barbecue at Oaks Park that was attended by 20,000. At the Taylor Street Methodist Church, young women chalked murals on the sidewalk to promote the suffragette cause to the morning crowds. Hotels, bars, restaurants and department stores hosted record crowds. Breweries ramped up production with special brews. The sailors did what the sailors do.

The giant onion dome of the Chautauqua Auditorium in Milwaukie hosted many suffragette activities during the week. Built in 1895, near the interurban line to Oregon City, it could hold three thousand people.

The Taylor Street Methodist Church on the south east corner of Third and Taylor. Prominent suffragette Frances Squire Potter addressed a large audience there Friday, July 12 1912. Young women spent the early hours of the morning chalking murals on the sidewalk in front of the church to draw attention to the issues and Potter's speech.

An Oregonian advertisement for the Star Brewery's Hop Gold Beer, aimed at the Elks, aka "Bill." (click on images to expand).

Convention week, looking west from the corner of Third and Morrison. Three blocks to the right towers the doomed Marquam Grand, four months prior to the collapse of its east side on November 21 1912. Extensive as they were, the street decorations paled in comparison to those further up town.

At the center of everything was the Court of Honor, which enclosed four blocks, on 6th, 7th, Yamhill and Stark streets with rows of pillars topped with globes and strung with white and purple lights. At each corner it was bounded by large white arches.

The south east corner of the Court of Honor, looking north on 6th Street at Yamhill. The Portland Hotel is to the left. The Pioneer Post Office (Courthouse) is to the far right. The gate at Stark street four blocks away can be seen in the distance.

"This is a sample of the electric decorations- there are block after block of. It is beautiful at night." -a hand written message on the back of the post card above.

The major buildings within and surrounding the Court of Honor were decorated with thousands of lights. The courtyard of the Portland Hotel featured "an immense circle of electric globe lights" that extended to the top of the building. The Wells Fargo building boasted a lit clock face, 72 feet in diameter, with the hands set at eleven o'clock, the hour of Elk's remembrance. The Yeon Building was bathed in purple light on its lower floors, white on the upper floors and "Hello Bill" lit from the roof. The Multnomah, Perkins and Imperial Hotels and the Lewis, Chamber of Commerce and Electric buildings were all noted for the lavishness of their decorations.

The Journal Building, aka Jackson Tower and the south west corner of the Court of Honor at Seventh and Yamhill.

The Elks Building at the northwest corner of the Court of Honor, Seventh and Stark streets.

"The Elk's Lodge machinery grinds on." Committees met, elections were held. The true order of business though was revelry and pageantry as represented by processions and parades, small and large, impromptu and formal. Theater owner, impresario and future Portland mayor George Baker, true to his propensity to join everything, was a high ranking local Elk. He was put in charge of the two epic productions that capped the convention week.

The first was a "electrical parade" that featured 18 illuminated floats (likely built from old streetcars and operated on tracks) held Wednesday evening and said to have been viewed by 250,000.

It was followed on Friday by the Grand Review: ten thousand marching Elks and 28 bands on a five mile route that straddled both sides of the river and was viewed by 300,000 spectators.

"Under Fairest Skies 300,000 Turn Out as Fitting Climax to Close of Lodge Reunion - Eastern Members Amazed at Scene." -The Oregonian

The Grand Review marches down the Court of Honor.

Sailors from USS Oregon with a large (and accurate model) of their ship in the Grand Review.

(Winged ?!) Elks in the Grand Review. The building from where this picture was taken still exists. Borrowing a page from Dan Davis and his excellent Vintage Portland site, can anyone comment on where the location is? The next post will have the answer, and a current picture of the same place.

At the week's end the conventioneers, the visiting suffragettes and the sailors were departing with memories of a boisterous, frenzied, enchanted city.

To Portlanders the experience was more ephemeral; the decorations came down, a new work week began. Soon there was not a trace of the luminous spectacle.

Still, it was not likely soon forgotten. It is hard to imagine that is was not somewhat on the minds of those who conceived of "The Great Light Way" on Third street less than two years later.

2010-05-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

Ducking the Questions

It might be hard to get worked up about preserving the Kiernan Building (1916), aka the Dirty Duck, when a treasure such as the Morris Marks House dire status is still unresolved. But if only masterpieces are saved, what remains is history skewed away from everyday life.

The Kiernan Building, on the corner of NW Third and Glisan, was recently approved for demolition by the city council to accommodate a new three to for story for the Blanchet House. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Palaces as a contributing structure in the New Chinatown / Japantown Historic District, but it is part of a street scape whose history reveals a complexity beyond the simplification of Portland's "town" designations.

The areas proximity to Union Station made it an early gateway to downtown for travelers. Industry and labor, to and from the forests and docks followed as did Japanese American merchants and later Chinese Americans displaced from Portland's original Chinatown along Second. During World War II African American shipyard workers lived at the Royal Palm Hotel on Third and Flanders. The Blanchet House and the Union Gospel Mission (in the former New Grand Central Hotel) established a decades long tradition of benevolence which continues to this day.

The Royal Palm Hotel on Third and Flanders.

"History is inseparable from place. Its a complicated world, but when defined plainly, place is the stuff of memories, or all the sensory delights and fears connected to particular locations in time." -Matthew Klingle, from Emerald City, an Environmental History of Seattle.

When completed in 1916, the Kiernan Building was a typical light industrial structure. It housed Roy Chekezoff & Sons Confectionery and the Western Machine Works as well as two small store fronts. Other business followed, such as Portland Welder's Supply and the Western Union Telegraph Company.

Block #25 in 1950. The Kiernan Building, at the top right, houses Western Union, a machine shop and restaurant. Next door is a tent factory, Pike Tent and Awning. Note the Shasta Hotel on Glisan (now a vacant lot) whose name hearkens back to Portland being the furthest point north on the Southern Pacific's Shasta Route mainline. The Blanchet house (currently standing) is next door on the corner of 4th and Glisan.

The Dirty Duck Tavern was established in 1979. In 1984 it was purchased by Gail Kennedy and opened to the Gay Community, with mayoral candidate Bud Clark as a guest bartender. Kennedy's grandmother, Erma Anderson, had ran Dinty Moore's, an early Portland gay bar in the 1950s, followed by Mama Bernice's in the 1960s and the Other Inn in the 1970s. It its twenty five years of operation, the Dirty Duck was a fundraising stalwart against the AIDS crises. When it lost its lease in 2009, the Dirty Duck was the longest lived gay bar in Portland in a single location.

Also in the mid-1980s, in the space next door, Greg Sage, leader of Portland's great punk / post-punk band The Wipers built a recording studio where the albums such as Land of the Lost and Straight Ahead were recorded.

When the Kiernan Building is demolished, more than bricks and mortar is being removed.

The Kiernan Building with the Dirty Duck and Pike Tent and Awning in October 1980. Pike Tent and Awning, an example of very early construction on Third, lasted into the mid 1980s. Photo courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.

"We are not removing something significant; removing the blight would be quite helpful." -Architect Joe Pinzone, who is designing the new Blanchet House to be built on the site of the Kiernan Building. The Oregonian, February 4 2010.

The 4 to 1 city council vote (Amanda Fritz, the sole vote against demolition) opens up a number of questions:

What does it say about Portland's green commitment when the surface parking lot next to the Kiernan Building, on long term lease to the city, remains a surface parking lot instead of a site for the new Blanchet House?

Could the Kiernan Building had at least been partially incorporated into the new development?

What will be the effect on Portland's historic fabric, now that the precedent of demolishing contributing structures in historic districts is established?

Is Portland so smitten with LEED ratings and new construction as to overlook the value of the embodied energy (the energy and materials used to extract, transport and build) in pre-existing structures?

For all our talk of sustainability, does Portland like to wear green only when it is sexy?

I'll be hosting a history talk at McMenamins Edgfield for the Oregon Encyclopedia on Tuesday May 25, at the Power Station Theater, at 6:30, all ages welcome. The topic is "The Third Streeters and the Great Light Way" a version of the program I did in October for the Architectural Heritage Center. It is the story of downtown Portland's move west, with lots of pictures.

The Wipers, Land of the Lost, recorded in the Kiernan Building in 1986.

2010-04-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Relics, found and otherwise (Part 1)

On NW First Avenue, between Couch and Davis near the old Import Plaza Building sits a shin level mystery.

It is too low to work as a bench, too high to be part of the planter that borders it. The inscription: GRAND-CENTRAL, suggests a railroad station.

This in a way is correct. The New Grand Central was a hotel that once towered over Third and Flanders, near Union Station. The sandstone piece is one of a surprising number of Portland relics hidden in plain sight.

Click on pictures to expand. Photo courtesy of the Architectural Heritage Center.

When completed in 1892 by beer mogul Henry Weinhard, the New Grand Central Hotel, on the corner of 3rd and F street, was ideally situated for arrivals from Portland's still under construction Grand Central Passenger Station (Union Station was more a descriptive term than a proper name at the time) and the steamship docks on the Willamette River. The area was a gateway to Portland for travelers, where City and Suburban Railway streetcars descended from the original Steel Bridge into the evolving hotel district to continue downtown on Third Street.

The five story building was designed by architect Henry Hefty (see Peripheral Explorations) in the prevailing Romanesque revival style. It featured a decorative tower and all the modern accouterments of the day.

"The New Grand Central contains 142 handsomely furnished rooms, a well furnished office, an attractive dinning room, bar and barber shop, electric lights and elevator. Artesian water and steam heat are supplied throughout the house."
-The Oregonian's Handbook of the Pacific Northwest, published in 1894.

Looking east on Flanders, towards the new Steel Bridge, post-1915 with an arch from "The Great Light Way" over the intersection at Third. The Royal Palm Hotel in the foreground still exists.

Nearly a quarter century later, by 1915, Portland's luxury hotels were concentrated downtown, while hotels near Union Station, such as the New Grand Central, Hoyt, Royal Palm, Del-Mae-Joe and the Golden West (the only hotel in Portland open to African Americans) catered to travelers of more modest means.

Downtown was moving west, away from its 1890s center on Third Street. In response, the street's merchants banded together to create "The Great Light Way" of lit arches on Third from Glisan to Yamhill, to provide an attraction to arrest downtown's drift.

North of Burnside, Portland's Japantown, or Nihonmachi, had coalesced between NW Second and Fifth streets. Japanese American businessman T. Yuasa leased the New Grand Central from the Weinhard estate, renovated it and renamed it the American Hotel.

Hotel operation was an attractive business for Japanese immigrants as it provided both a livelihood and a place for their families 30 Japanese American hostelries north of Burnside.

"Building leased for a term of years by T. Yuasa: Since the installation of the arches at the intersection of the streets on Third Street, a rejuvenation of this thoroughfare is indicated by the lease of the five story building. ...It has heretofore been known as the New Grand Central Hotel. The building was constructed in 1892 and is one of the landmarks of that section of Portland. It is held that this marks the beginning of a new era for this particular section of Third." -The Oregonian, June 1915.

Japanese born immigrants (Issei) were barred from owning real estate. To operate a hotel, they either had to purchase it in the name of one of the U.S. born children, or lease, as T. Yuasa did. Although the opening of Yuasa's establishment was written up by the Oregonian as evidence of revitalization along "The Great Light Way," the public face of the hotel was that of clerk W.H. O'Donald in this advertisement from the Portland City Directory of 1915.

A 1948 view looking north on Third with a flood detoured Mt. Tabor streetcar and the American Hotel. The wooden building is shown in the 1889 Sanborn Insurance atlas as the St. Lawrence Hotel. Photo courtesy of Sheldon Perry.

The American Hotel's proprietors changed frequently throughout the 1920, before settling on Joseph Grimm, who operated it from 1935 to 1950. During World War II, the neighboring Royal Palm Hotel was opened to African American shipyard workers as wartime housing. It is not known if the American Hotel was utilized likewise.

By the time this photograph was taken in the early 1970s, the building's tower had long been removed. -Courtesy of the Architectural Heritage Center.

In 1950 the building was sold to the Union Gospel Mission who operated it as their Friendly Home until 1973. It then sat largely vacant until being demolished in 1978.

Undated newspaper clipping from the Multnomah County Library's collection, circa mid 1970s.

The story would usually end there. Another part of old Portland, gone, without a trace.

However, three decorative fixtures, including the Grand Central sandstone block survived, along with a small segment of wall that bordered the parking lot that replaced the building. The pieces were acquired by the Portland Friends of Cast-Iron group, who were repatriating cast-iron remnants throughout the Skidmore Oldtown and Yamhill Historic Districts. They came to the attention of Bill Naito who was pursuing his vision of a revitalized Old town that built upon the areas history.

Bill Naito obtained the three fragments for use as decorative elements in the neighborhood. The Grand Central sandstone blocks he placed on the lot of his Import Plaza store, at the north east corner of First and Couch.

It is not known if Bill Naito's interest in the pieces was just for their age, or if he knew of the old hotel's association with Portland's Japantown. A comparison of the Grand Central blocks with his sign on the Import Plaza building suggests that it might have had some extra meaning for him.

The other two pieces from the New Grand Central were placed in a nearby alley of Couch, between First and Second, where they can be accessed through Floyd's Coffee Shop.

The remaining wall segment of the old hotel was finally demolished in the late 1990s for the construction of the Classical Chinese (now Lan Su) Garden.

(Part 2 of Relics, found and otherwise to follow).

Thanks to Portland's own Architectural Heritage Center for use of the color photographs of the New Grand Central building, Brandon Spencer-Hartle for
pointing out the sandstone blocks to me, and Bill Hawkins for telling me how they got there.

Updates, Log jams, Good and Bad News...

First the bad news. The theme of this article is relics that are hidden in plain sight (and some, surprisingly absent). Sadly the New Grand Central sandstone blocks were not hidden enough. During the time spent researching this post it was vandalized - pushed over, and now is in three, instead of two pieces. The damage is largely to hits patina, nothing another ten years of moss will not cure. The break is clean and seamless. The fact that it is face down probably protects it from further attention. It needs help and protection. Perhaps a better spot for it is in the safely locked courtyard / alley that holds its former companions.

I am happy to be a clearinghouse for information, ideas and concerns regarding efforts to restore and protect the pieces. My email address is my first initial, d followed by my last name (see profile) @comcast.net.

This post was too long coming. It kept growing, both the main article and smaller related pieces. I decided the best thing to do was to break it up. Part 2 will follow but I can not guarantee it will be the next one, as other posts line up at the gate. I think a course change is in order, with smaller, more frequent posts to gain prominence. Watch this space.

The good news: It looks like the David Campbell Memorial (previous post) is safe, at least from being parted out. It to has been recently vandalized (tagged) but has been repaired.

Finally, recently I showed up on KATU Channel 2 news to talk about the late "intersection from hell" at Sandy, Burnside and 12th. KATU has an article and clip here.

2010-01-31T11:14:00.001-08:00

Two Fountains

It is our lot, those of us who care about conserving Portland's treasures, to play defense.

The Shemanski Fountain, built in 1926, a gift from Joseph Shemanski, a Polish immigrant, to the city that showed him kindness.

On the night of April 25 2007 vandals attempted to steal the statue, Rebecca at the Well, within the Shemanski Fountain in the Park Blocks. The statue's base held, but the fountain was heavily damaged. Months of restoration work followed. Since being repaired the fountain was damaged again, this time by metal thieves looking to cash in from selling its fixtures. Today it bears the marks of recent tagging.

The incidents highlight the disturbing vulnerability of our public heritage resources to those tone-deaf to anything but their own impulses. Possible solutions, barriers or relocation are unacceptable; to protect Portland's communal historic places from vandals and thieves can present challenges to their very nature as shared space.

To protect them from Portland's government might be harder still.

At the intersection of SW 18th and Burnside in Portland Firefighter's Park is another fountain, the David Campbell Memorial, which faces threats even more immediate and dire than those pitted against the Shemanski Fountain.

The Union Oil fire, June 26 1911. -From Portland Fire and Rescue by Brian K. Johnson and Don Porth, Arcadia Publishing.

On June 26, 1911, Portland's Fire Chief, David Campbell was directing the response to a massive fire at the Union Oil Company on the southeast corner of Water and Salmon in south east Portland. The fire, fed by abundant fuel, was so large that it attracted crowds to the area estimated by the Oregonian at ten thousand. As the structure weakened, retreat was called. David Campbell entered the building to make sure there were no longer firefighters within. A huge explosion brought the wall down that killed him.

The corner of SE Water and Salmon, January 2010, home of Pratt and Larson's tiles seconds room. The building was constructed nine years after the Union Oil fire.

Portland's fire chief for eighteen years, David Campbell was a beloved local figure whose firefighting career spanned back to the days of the volunteer fire department prior to 1883. As chief, he was an innovator who introduced motorized vehicles and fire boats to the department. His funeral procession, witnessed by 150,000 people, was likely the city's largest outpouring of public grief.

"I loved Chief Campbell and I want everyone to know how good he was. He always had a smile and a kind word for all the school children. Whenever we were late he used to take us up to school in his auto just a-whizzing, and at noon we used to hurry back from lunch and he would let us ride with him. I think he was the best fire chief that ever lived. I want to be good to the children when I get big, like he was."
-Maurice Johnson, ten years old from the Rose City Park neighborhood, in the Oregonian, June 27 1911 (from a hand written note that he delivered to the Oregonian office).

Portland Fire Chief David Campbell.
-From Portland Fire and Rescue by Brian K. Johnson and Don Porth, Arcadia Publishing.

The David Campbell Memorial and Medal Fund was established on June 21 1913 to commemorate David Campbell and all Portland Firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty to follow. Land at 18th and Burnside was donated to the city by Katherine A. Daley in 1918.

The memorial was designed by architect Paul Cret of Philadelphia, whose career would include the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, the Main Building of the University of Texas at Austin and the Cincinnati Union Terminal. Constructed from Caen limestone imported from France, it was dedicated by Mayor George Baker on June 27 1928.

The grounds bordering the memorial were expanded to create Portland Firefighter's Park in 1964, which includes a list of thirty two Portland firefighters that lost their lives in the line of duty and an alarm bell dating from the year after the great Portland fire of 1873.

Below; drawings by Paul Cret for the David Campbell Memorial from Philadelphia Architects and Buildings:

January 2010.

January 2010.

A proposal for a new fire fighters memorial to be built near the east side of the Hawthorne Bridge has been announced, supported by Commissioner Randy Leonard. Three finalists are being considered with hopes of a dedication on June 26 2011, the hundred year anniversary of David Campbell's death. The goal of the David Campbell Memorial Association is to provide a larger more accessible memorial to Portland's fallen firefighters.

It would be hard to harbor reservations against the well intentioned project were it not for the fact that it entails the destruction of the original memorial. Plans include the removal of the bronze plaque and at least one lantern to incorporate them into the new structure. To cannibalize a historic civic space to build a new memorial shows an almost inconceivable degree of disregard for Portland's shared heritage.

Commissioner Randy Leonard in the January 21 2010 Oregonian provided justification stating:

"It's a memorial, unfortunately that time will disintegrate."

Which is true - in so much as the same thing could be said about nearly everything.

The sentiment is echoed on the Portland Firefighters Memorial website:

"Sadly, the 81 year old memorial is crumbling and beyond repair, experts predict that it will not withstand many more winters."

Which stretches the definition of beyond repair well past the breaking point.

"...crumbling and beyond repair..."

Despite a very limited public process, word of the plan to demolish the original memorial is spreading and efforts to preserve it are starting to coalesce. A facebook page, a petition, testimony at city hall and numerous articles seek a larger airing of the issue.

The question is not if Portland's firefighters deserve a larger, more accessible memorial. They most certainly do. But does it have to come at the cost of the first one, with its own intrinsic value in addition to what it represents? Is Portland large enough for two memorials or so small as there can only be one?

It is hard to imagine that the David Campbell Memorial with be defaced or demolished by the city of Portland. It should be regarded as sacrosanct -because it is. A middle course, the transfer of the bell and plaques outside of the original memorial, is easy to envision, as is the possibility more thoughtful heads prevailing.

If not, it will be time for those who care about Portland's shared, historic resources to rally and walk the talk. It is, after all, our lot to play defense.

In the meanwhile, check out the links below, visit the memorial and assess for yourself the dire claims of its condition. More important, appreciate it for what it is; it might not be there long, and for what it means.

Please join the facebook page.

You tube Video of Paul Crett's work.

On line petition

The Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial, also designed by Paul Crett, restoration.

18th and Burnside, circa 1949.

18th and Burnside, January 2010.

-Thanks to Jon Gustafson for sounding the alarm and Tanya Lyn March for keeping it ringing.

2010-01-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

...and a Castle

In the limited public process regarding the David Campbell Memorial, one can hear an echo of Commissioner Ormond Bean's unilateral decision in 1964 to knock down the Owl Castle in Washington Park.

The Owl Castle was built in 1894 in what was then City Park to house eaglets and owls as part of the city's nascent zoo. By 1964 its actual purpose was long forgotten. It had become a folly, along the lines of those still existent on the north side of Stanley Park in Vancouver BC. While it paled in significance to the David Campbell Memorial, it was not without charm and its demolition was meant with shock and sadness.

"Its gone. That's what happened to the city's mystery castle, the small stone fortress that used to grace the lower reaches of Washington Park." -The Oregon Journal, July 9 1964.

The site of the Owl Castle is across the road from the fountain, between the two trees. A few feet beyond the crosswalk, a second trail intersects from the right, at what was the west end of the Owl Castle. It is still known today as the Owl Trail.

Thanks to Don Nelson for pinpointing the location of the Owl Castle.

2009-12-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Illuminating Interstate

Interstate Avenue, the evening of December 2, 1964; the neon lights were on but the cars were gone. Earlier that afternoon, the Minnesota Freeway opened. Traffic raced through North Portland in a trench, three blocks west of the Highway 99W surface route. At service stations, restaurants and motels along "the Avenue," implications were setting in. The era of interstate travel on Interstate Avenue was over.

Three quarters of a century earlier, in the logged over patchwork of woodlots, dairies and small farms on the Peninsula, two roads, Myrtle Street and Maple Street were platted parallel to each other in the North Albina Addition. The new subdivision, near the station stops of Ockley Green and Arbor Lodge on the steam rail line to St. Johns, was one of many staked out in the area, soon to be annexed by the city of Albina.

"Street scene on the Peninsula, Portland Oregon" circa 1900.

The cities of Albina and East Portland were consolidated into Portland in 1891. The following year Myrtle Street was renamed Patton Avenue and Maple renamed Maryland (portions of both would be combined to make Interstate). Neighboring Oak was changed to Montana, Cedar to Minnesota and Hemlock to Michigan. The changes were made either to conform with other street names in the area, as in the case with Patton, or to remove duplication (in Albina alone there were other Myrtle and Cedar streets).

At the same time, area residents began to advocate for a road west of Mississippi Avenue to reach down the bluff towards Lower Albina and downtown Portland.

"Interstate Avenue? Wasn't such a thing when I was a boy. Where Interstate is now there was nothing but a wide stretch and a few houses, a fire station and a wooden schoolhouse. We called it Patton Avenue. It didn't deserve any name at all. That street had the biggest damn hoes in it you ever saw. You could go swimming in them." -Clifford Nelson in the Oregon Journal, October 24 1977.

The desire for a new road south likely influenced a local movement to combine the north end of Patton with the south end of Maryland to form Interstate Avenue, with the goal of connecting downtown to the new Interstate Bridge. The south end of Patton was to be renamed Massachusetts, adding another M state name to the area. The motion was passed by the city council on December 16 1916.

North Portland of the future, circa 1919. Interstate is still referred to on the map as Patton. Although a decade from continuing down the bluff, it was already noted as part of the Pacific Highway. The Heusner car line, on the alignment of Tri Met's Yellow Line, was a planned electric interurban to cross the Interstate Bridge (built with dual gauge track to accommodate it) and continue to Seattle by knitting together existing systems with new segments. Miles of right of way in Washington had been purchased before the plan was killed by World War I and the automobile. (Click on pictures to expand)

Despite grand arterial aspirations, "the Avenue" was still a local street that stopped at the edge of the bluff that overlooked Lower Albina. In 1923 a new effort was mounted by the Greater Peninsula Association to cut a grade down the hillside. The cost would be split by the city, county and local property owners. In 1928 the grading was complete. Shortly thereafter Interstate was extended again by renaming Delay and Larabee south to the junction with Broadway.

The extension to Lower Albina in 1930. The partially visible sign to the far right likely advertises the Interstate Auto Camp on Columbia Blvd. -City of Portland Archives.

As part of West Side Pacific Highway #3 (designated US 99W in 1930) Interstate Avenue began to take on the accoutrements of a highway: service stations, auto camps and billboards.

In 1939, Interstate lit up.

"For seekers of new beauty in Portland, a drive at night on Interstate Avenue has possibilities. The simple symmetry, the sweeping curves, the new overhead lights, caused a child to say, "Its like on the way to fairyland."

One gets the first glimpse of this novel charm, from the city side, after passing the junction with Greeley Avenue and starting up the hill. From here on Interstate is different. That's because the lights hang higher than the conventional, and shaded and uniform in the distance.

Up the hill and around the first curve, the beauty unfolds. Great numbers of lights, so accurately spaced, are individually visible. The street is remarkably free of signs and illuminated business places. The street lamps are shaded so they pour their soft brightness on the pavement. Houses are left in shadow. One is aware only of light - a path of light through the darkness. Ingenious little devices, like the eyes of a night creature, set in the raised portion, one after another scrutinize the passing car and passes it on. Mysterious sentries on watch."
-From Beauty in a Street, the Oregonian, December 30 1939.

Interstate in the area of Prescott and Failing in 1947. The Little Waldorf drive in and Walt's Associated service station (both pictured below) are visible along the curve where Interstate jogs from the Patton to Maryland alignments. As now, electric powered transit served the area, then in the form of Portland Traction's Interstate trolley bus line. The current I-5 trench cuts through the blocks immediately to the left of the Patton Home (brick building, top, right of center). -City of Portland Archives. (click on images to expand).

After the war "the Avenue" glowed with neon. For two decades, restaurant, motel and service stations were lit late into the night, enticing travelers to stop, eat, stay or fill up.

Walt's Associated service station on Interstate between Mason and Prescott, and behind it, the Little Waldorf car hop drive in. The building still exists as Interstate Automotive. In 1958 there were twenty three service stations on Interstate between the Broadway Bridge and Kenton. Today there are four.
- Photo courtesy of Gary Larson.

In 1933 there were already thirteen service stations on Interstate. In the postwar years the number reached into the twenties. Stations such as Vern's Signal, Overlook Enco, Interstate Texaco, Interstate Shell, Vic's Veltex and Jenson's Union clustered at major intersections, sometimes one to each corner. Upholstery shops, tire stores, auto painters and the Rocket Ambulance and Towing Service were also located to serve highway traffic.

The Alibi, Wongs, the Nite Hawk, Nohlgrens, the Frosty Snack Bar and Howard Finch's Hamburger Palace; restaurants lasted for decades or closed in weeks. At the Killingsworth intersection during the war years there was the 100 to 1 Restaurant, aka "The Siberian," named for its owner, Si Berry. Will-Yum's In & Out, George's Corner Tavern, the U & I Tavern and Parker's 24 Flavors were favored by both locals and travelers.

The Little Waldorf drive-in, circa 1949. Much remodeled, today the building houses the Interstate Bar and Grill. The house in the background, on the ill-fated block recently cleared for now absent development, was used as a practice burn for the Portland Fire Department in September.
-Photo courtesy of Gary Larson.

The Palms, the Sands, the Westerner, the Viking and the Crown; Motel signs on Interstate glowed and flashed with Vegas inspired intensity. Some, like Mel's Motor Inn had their own restaurants attached. Swimming pools were de riguer despite a short season. Throughout the two postwar decades their numbers held consistently around fifteen.

A postcard from the Copper Clock Motel. On the back: "Dear Mom, we found a nice motel and are having a good time" wrote Larry to his mother in Heppner Oregon on July 3 1959.

The Cummings Motel was directly in front of Overlook Park on the site of today's Kaiser Interstate complex.

Mel's Motor Hotel, with its Jantzen inspired sign, a swimming pool and Mel's Top Deck Restaurant.

The Knickerbocker Motel at Interstate and Wygant.

A Frieghtliner truck climbs the bluff above Union Pacific's Albina Yard on an idealized Interstate Avenue in the early 1960s. The Fremont Bridge is still a decade away.
-From Oregon - Bright Land of Promise by the First National Bank of Oregon.

On March 17 1959 Portland's City Planning Commission agreed with the Oregon State Highway Department to route the new federally funded "Interstate Freeway" on a Minnesota Avenue alignment, in a trench through North Portland.

When work was completed and the new "Minnesota Freeway" freeway opened on December 2 1964, traffic on Interstate dropped immediately, heralding a long period of decline.

"It is too early to determine just what effect reduced traffic volumes will have on Interstate Avenue business establishments, however a number of vacancies have occurred in gas stations and some motels are converting to apartment hotels."
-Urban Renewal Minnesota Study, Portland Planning Bureau, 1964.

"I remember how quiet it got that afternoon when the last link of the freeway was opened. This was the main line to Seattle. All of a sudden there were no trucks going by."
-George LaDu, What ever happened to Interstate Avenue?, the Oregonian, May 20 1984.

King Arthur meets the Jet Age at the Crown Motel. Successful preservation of this sign would bode much for the future of Interstate's roadside past.

Forty five years after the travelers were diverted; Interstate Avenue is still in flux. Higher density development along the transit corridor holds promise for more life on "the Avenue." New business, markets, restaurants and offices are tangible sings of revitalization. It is likely that interstate traffic will someday return to Interstate in the form of light rail to Vancouver.

With revival come challenges. How to meet concerns in long established neighborhoods of being towered over by new infill. How to humanize high density big box mixed use residential units? How to build transit oriented development that is somewhat respectful of an areas scale and character? How to keep and maintain what makes neighborhoods unique through times of transition?

Its said people hate their parent's architecture and love their grandparent's. It is probably not coincidental that fifty years is the general threshold for a structure to be included on the National Register of Historic Places. What was once seen as garish, common or disposable can viewed in a generation as evocative, unique and worthy of preservation. So it was with Victorian architecture, then craftsmen bungalows and now the mid-century era.

Nearly a decade ago during the planning of Tri Met's Yellow Line, local input was sought for the theme of public art at the Prescott Street stop. A neon-themed idea to celebrate Interstate's past and play off the surviving motel signs received no official attention. Instead a dead stream motif was chosen and a large ships screw placed across the street from the station. It was too soon to appreciate what was then still considered a sign of blight.

Today neon is part of the design guidelines for the Interstate urban renewal zone, a "neon district" to highlight the area's uniqueness. Will it come to pass, or is it just a sop to drum up support for the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal planned zoning goals?

The fate of the Crown Motel sign, presently stored for restoration after the motel was demolished to build Patton Park Apartments, will show how serious Portland is about integrating preservation with transition. Supporters, associated with the Mid Century Modern League, are searching for a site on Interstate. One in particular, enigmatically nicknamed the "pork chop," is a small unused median parcel owned by the Portland Department of Transportation. With the "pork chop" comes a chicken verses egg dilemma: to marshal a plan and resources, the signs advocates need a site. To consider awarding a site, PDOT needs a plan and resources.

Could there be a public / private partnership? An inspired piece of solar powered public art? A larger than life community bulletin board? Imagination is not in such short supply as shared initiative and cooperation.

A positive outcome for the Crown Motel sign and the preservation of the other landmarks in the area, from the Palms to Paul Bunyon, will help determine if Interstate will be a vital residential and transit corridor in the next century, or a tree-lined canyon between residential big boxes, with all the historicity of a corporate office park. Success in integrating what makes an area unique with a future that will contain greater population density will have implications, not just for North Portland, but city wide.

If done right, "the Avenue" will remain lit for a long time.

2009-12-06T09:07:00.001-08:00

Names, Lights and Links

A portion of North Portland after the 1891 consolidation of Portland, East Portland and Albina. (click on images to expand).

Prior to the wave of annexations that lead to the consolidation of 1891, the naming of streets outside city limits was the parvenu of each local developer. As streets were plated and scraped across the landscape, each new subdivision followed its proprietor's sense of naming aesthetics. Proper names, numbers, letters, trees and states, all were used. The ensuing chaos lead to such oddities as another Broadway, plated somewhere in the gulch now occupied by Going Street on the way to Swan Island.

Segments of the same road could have different names, such as the case of Patton, Myrtle and Multnomah, depending on which addition: Patton, North Albina or Good Morning, that it passed through. In Illuminating Interstate, I focused in on Myrtle Street because it had the earliest dated reference I could find on a predecessor of Interstate, but it is likely all three names existed simultaneously.

Just what was the Oregonian referring to in the 1939 article, Beauty in a Street? What was meant by "ingenious little devices, like the eyes of a night creature, set in the raised portion? What were the "mysterious sentries on the watch"?

Long after miles of continuous street lighting became commonplace, the median reflectors and lights installed on Interstate in 1939 survived until the building of the Yellow Line in 2002, albeit in disrepair and often painted over. Lonnie Currier photographed some of them and managed to salvage a piece during demolition (above).

Photos courtesy of Lonnie Currier.

A revitalized Historic Preservation League of Oregon has returned to continue their good work on state wide preservation issues.

Portland Preservation is a new blog by the Bosco-Milligan Foundation that provides up to the minute news and issues on preservation in Portland.

Council Crest car #509 at Union Station in the 1930s.

Portland Vintage Trolleys has a new route and a new web address. Details, schedules and a incredible amount of history can be found there.

December 6 2009.

The Marco Polo, Interstate and Shaver.

Sarah Mirk's article in Preservation Magazine about the efforts to save the Crown Motel sign.

2009-09-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

Peripheral Explorations

It shows up in the background of old photographs of the Dekum Building: a stylishly inexplicable structure, only partially visible, with a fortress like cornice and towering twisted peaks that loomed over the intersection of Fourth and Washington. Overshadowed by its larger neighbor to the east, the angled views provide more questions than answers. What building was it? What style? Who built it? When?

What happened to it?

The distinctive roof line appears behind the Dekum Building and above the City and Suburban Railway streetcar in this circa 1893 view looking west from the intersection of Third and Washington. (click on photographs to enlarge)

A similar view, ten years later, after the construction of the Third Street arches.

When I finally came across a view from a different angle, of Fourth Street in the 1920s, it provided no further clues, other than the fact that it had made it into the decade. Over the years "the building with the towers" proved elusive, always on the peripheral, never the direct subject of a photograph. How could anything so apparently elaborate pass undocumented?

Fourth Street in the 1920s. The towers are visible near the Pacific School of Advertising billboard. The train is a Southern Pacific "Red Electric" interurban that ran as far south as Corvallis on the west side of the Willamette Valley.

The breakthrough came in a booklet on Portland published in 1890 by the Oregon Immigration Board. Featured among the years new buildings, such as the Hotel Portland, the Marquam Grand, the Worchester Block, the Thompson-Burrel Block (New Market Annex) and the Union Passenger Depot (under construction) was the wildly exuberant Washington Block, so unlike its more reserved contemporaries.

I had a name and a face, but no less of a mystery.

Thus began a quest for the Washington Block that shuttled between the Central Library's microfilm readers and the John Wilson Special Collections rare book room, the Oregon Historical Society, the research library at the Architectural Heritage Center and a visit with architect / historian William Hawkins. Slowly bits of information came together to the story of an extraordinary Portland building. Even the inevitable parking lot ending took an unexpected turn.

The New Market Annex, built in 1889.

Portland was in the midst of an architectural transformation in 1889, the year the Washington Block was built. The final three cast-iron buildings in the city: the Blagen Block (1888) on First and C (later Couch Street), the Dodd Block (1889) and Glisan's Building (1889, the home of Kell's Irish Restaurant and Pub) were completed just as a new trend was sweeping the country.

Overnight cast-iron was passe in Portland, in favor of the mass of brick and stone that characterized a Romanesque revival, often called "Richardsonian" for its most influential practitioner, Henry Hobson Richardson (see Portland Romanesque).

The new style, the architectural equivalent of the transformation from Victorian to Arts and Crafts aesthetics, stressed simplified lines and highlighted material over ornamentation. Arches and stonework were prominent, a romantic nod to the pre-Gothic medieval. Brick was often (but not always) left exposed. Massive bases allowed taller building heights in the years just before steel beam construction. The Washington Block broke with as many of those conventions as it followed.

"The imposing five-story structure at the southeast corner of Fourth and Washington is one of the most ornamental buildings erected in 1889. It contains every improvement known to modern architectural art. The cost of this structure was about $75,000 all told." -The Oregonian, January 1 1890.

The office building was the project of Portland Pioneers William Fliedner (1832-1914) and Edward Holman (1850-1920). William Fliedner was born in Germany, Edward Holman in Brooklyn New York. Both arrived in Portland via ship and an overland crossing of Nicaragua, Fliedner in 1851, Holman in 1863. Both rose from modest circumstances, Fliedner was a barber, Holman an undertaker (Holman Funeral Services is in business to this day on Hawthorne), before investing in real estate later in life. They would sell the Washington Block in 1906 for $200,000.

The architect they chose, Swiss borne Henry J. Hefty, created an eccentric, extravagant structure that contrasted with prevailing fashion. To the usual Romanesque arches and stonework he added bay windows tucked between pilasters and Gothic styled dormers above the roof line. The building was topped by two large ridge like cornices made of zinc, capped with swirling peaks, as if inspired by the same Wagnerian fairytale landscape that the Modernisme architects in Barcelona were drawing from at the time.

The West Shore Magazine of March 1 1890 noted in approval:

"More attention has been given to the ornamental in architecture by Portland builders in the past two years than formerly. Rather plain structures, excellent in their way, but lacking much in architectural beauty and in business conveniences have been the rule in this city until the last year or two. Now the new buildings are taking on much of ornament and contrast strongly with their predecessors. One of these recently completed is shown in the engraving on page 273." (above)

To anyone who has ever looked at the lions and Libertys of the Blagen Block (1888) it is a puzzling statement that perhaps refers to the simplified lines of buildings such as the New Market Annex.

The walls of the Washington Block were cement, a material used on some Romanesque revival buildings in Seattle and on the Skidmore Building (now included in the White Stag Block) on First to the north side of the Burnside Bridge. The cement was finished so as to recall stone. The West Shore noted that the Washington Block's foundations were the largest yet in Portland. The building was lit by electricity and had an elevator.

A post card found at the Architectural Heritage Center's research library provides a rare street level photograph from the west side of the Washington Block.

The First Congregational Church (1891).

Architect Henry J. Hefty is best known in Portland for the First Congregational Church on the South Park Blocks. He also designed the New Grand Central Hotel (named after the original intended name for Union Station) that once stood on the site of the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, as well as his own home in the Holladay Addition. In 1890 he was selected to design Portland's city hall, but his huge building was deemed too expensive and "Kremlin like". Construction was halted shortly after the foundation was laid. In each of his Portland buildings he incorporated towers.

Henry J. Hefty's never completed Portland city hall.

A portion of a panoramic view from the book the Oregon Souvenir (1892) taken from the town of the new Oregonian Building at Sixth and Alder. The Washington Block can be seen to the left. Next to it on the right is the Louvre Saloon and Cafe, beyond that, the Holton House hotel (later the Belvedere), one of Portland's furthest west cast-iron buildings. Both are described in detail in the next post below. Behind the Washington Block, overshadowing it literally and figuratively is the back of the Dekum Building, still under construction. (click on pictures to enlarge).

The most audacious buildings of an era are often the quickest to show their age. The Washington Block was slated for demolition in 1931, but the plan was thwarted by the Great Depression. Three years later a new course of action was chosen, a radical remodel that removed the top four floors and added a new second story. The retention of the first level was perhaps to take advantage of the two foot thick walls and three inch by by eighteen inch floor joists as well as the enormous foundation, all mentioned in the Oregonian article that described the project. As often was the case in the 1930s, the building was described as a landmark, but with no mention of a impulse for preservation.

The former Washington Block in 1935.

When the work was completed, what remained of the Washington Block was renamed the McGuire Building for long time Portland real estate broker Frank L. McGuire, who moved company there. It stood until 1963, when the entire half block on Fourth, between Washington and Alder, was torn down to make a parking structure.

Does the foundation of the Washington Block lie beneath?

2009-09-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

Parisian Nights

Two doors down from the Washington Block, at Fourth and Alder, was a hotel, the Holton House, (later the Belvedere) in one of the few cast-iron buildings as far west as Fourth Street. When it was built in 1885, the neighborhood was largely residential but was changing rapidly as downtown moved inland. Prior to the opening of Union Station in 1896, the hotel was the arrival and departure point for Southern Pacific's steam passenger trains on the West Side line to Beaverton, Hillsboro, McMinnville and Corvallis via a right of way down the center of Fourth Street.

Tucked between the hotel and the Washington Block was one of the city's fine dining establishments; The Louvre.

The Louvre was opened in 1892 by Frederick Strobel, who had worked previously at the Quelle Saloon on Second and Stark.

A description in the Oregonian's Handbook on the Pacific Northwest (1892) gives a glimpse of late nineteenth century Portland nightlife, where office workers, travelers and after show crowds from the nearby Marquam Grand gathered for food, drink and entertainment.

"Among Portland's places of amusement there is no resort which enjoys so high a reputation in its line as The Louvre, located on Fourth Street, between Washington and Alder. To all intents and purposes The Louvre takes the place of a well equipped club, with advantages not possessed by the later institution. Fine meals are served here during the day, at a reasonable price, and the best of spirituous and malt liquors and cigars are dispensed to patrons at the bar, or at private tables. Leading magazines and periodicals are kept on file at The Louvre for the accommodation of guests.

In the evening at this popular resort, first-class concerts are given, free of charge, for the benefit of patrons who may be desirous of passing a few hours of pleasant relaxation. These concerts are varied occasionally by entertainments of a high order. The Louvre is conducted as a pleasant resort, which enjoys a high reputation, and is well worthy of the large patronage it receives."

A menu at the Oregon Historical Society shows a wide range of dining options: seasonal pheasant, grouse, quail, goose, chicken, turkey, squab, five kinds of duck and superior snipe. Oysters (Toke Point or Eastern, Shoalwater Bay and Olympia) were prepared sixteen ways. Steak options included plain, sirloin, tenderloin, porterhouse and chateaubriand. Welch rarebit, mutton, spaghetti, frog legs and many more selections rounded out the fare.

Wines from France, Germany and California's Napa-Sonoma Wine Company were offered as well as a large mixed drink and cordial list. Beer could be purchased by the pint or quart and included Guinness Stout, Bulldog (ale or porter), Budweiser, Olympia, Schlitz and Weinhard's Columbia. Four imported German beers were on tap. Locally brewed Gambrinus cost fifteen cents a pint, while Pabst Bue Ribbon went for a princely twenty five cents.

The Belvedere Hotel and The Louvre. The building to the left was built on the original site of The Lourve and would later be home to The Circle Theatre. The entire half block between Alder and Washington Streets on Fourth was demolished in 1963 to build a parking structure.

The Louvre moved next door into the first floor of the Hotel Belvedere in 1897. Fritz Strobel continued to run the enterprise until 1907 when Theodore Kruse took over. After a run of twenty two years, The Louvre closed in 1914, perhaps as the idea of serving French food with German beer was losing its plausibility.

An advertisement in a 1906 Portland city directory from the central library.

2009-09-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

Introduction and Invitation

In the July 5th post Vacation, I mentioned that a lot was going on. Now I can elaborate. Meet Ian, Jill's and my contribution to the riches of the city!

Dan's Pixieland shirt (the long vanished amusement park near Lincoln City) by Portland's own Vintage Roadside. Ian's Flash superhero onesie from Milagros on NE 30th. Two months ago I could not have even told you what a onesie was.

Invitation- On Saturday October 3 at the Architectural Heritage Center, I will be giving a presentation called The Rise and Fall of the "Great Light Way" Downtown Portland's Historic Third Street. It is the story of downtown Portland's move inland away from the river and one streets effort to halt the process. It expands upon numerous previous posts on this site, enhanced by a trove (!) of images from the AHC's research library. Tickets can be purchased here.

And finally, a graphic explaining Portland as a transportation hub, circa 1890, from the pamphlet on Portland published by the Oregon Immigration Board that I finally found a picture of the Washington Block in. It did not fit with the stories, but was too cool to pass up. (click on image to expand)

2009-07-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

All Tomorrow's Parties

The parades had ended, the bunting was removed, the guests had returned home. The white plaster city on the shore of Guild's Lake would be knocked down before it could rot. Portland's debut to a world audience, the Lewis and Clark Exposition of 1905 that celebrated a new era of trade on the Pacific rim, was over.

Portland was an early adopter to hosting a global event, as much transformative as promotional, along the lines of a worlds fair or international competition.

Other western cities followed. Seattle took to the stage four years later with the Alaska Pacific Exposition and again with the World's Fair of 1962. San Francisco hosted the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915 and the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939. Vancouver BC, late to the show, caught up with Expo 86 and next years 2010 Olympics.

Portland hosted the Oregon Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair in 1959, but despite its name, it was regional in scope and looked to the past as much as the future. As far as hosting a large scale international event was concerned, Portland was done in 1905. It was not for lack of trying.

In 1962 Portland made a big play for the 1968 Olympic Games.

The effort was lead by the Portland Olympic Council, which included Portland Mayor Terry D. Schrunk, Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield and a roll call of local and state-wide business leaders such as Glen Jackson of Pacific Power & Light, Gerald Frank of Meier & Frank, Ralph J. Voss of the First National Bank of Oregon and M.J. Frey, publisher of the Oregonian. At the apogee of the New Frontier, of the four hundred plus statewide business and civic leaders listed on the published membership roll, only fifteen were women.

Portland Mayor Terry D. Schrunk.

The decision to invite the XIX Olympiad built upon the existing ambitious initiatives during the Terry Schrunk administration that included a new zoo, the recently constructed Memorial Coliseum, a rapidly expanding freeway system, the dawn of Portland's urban renewal program and a proposed forty-eight million dollar stadium at Delta Park.

The stadium, as advocated by Portland Metropolitan Future Incorporated, would put Portland in contention for major athletic events and professional sports.

"If Portland wants to be the great metropolis of the Northwest, serving the distributing, banking, cultural and entertainment needs of a vast four state area, it should act like one. And the best way to act like a metropolis, in a class with San Francisco and Los Angeles, is to provide a big league stadium for baseball, football and other outdoor spectaculars which will attract thousands of visitors on a year-round basis."
-Fred Meyer in the Oregon Journal, January 9 1962.

A new stadium was viewed as essential to attract major league sports, at the same time the city's minor league baseball team was experiencing difficulties in Multnomah Stadium (today, PGE Park).

"I believe we are going through a cycle. I think baseball will regain popularity... Give us a new $900,000 park, seating maybe 9,000. We'd do all right, just as Tacoma has done and the hockey team is doing in its new facility."
-Arch Kingsley, President of the Portland Beavers in the Oregon Journal, September 5 1962.

To supporters of the Portland Olympic Council, the games would bring much more than sports to the city, jump starting plans already in the works.

"The connection is obvious: the Olympic Games would leave Portland with a stadium, swimming pool and other facilities even more magnificent than those called for in the original proposal which Future Unlimited made last July. But beyond that, putting on the Olympic Games would move our area years ahead in its development of housing, highways and countless other things not directly connected with sports. Just as the Worlds Fair has done for Seattle, the Games would show the world that Portland is a fresh and vigorous Western city, with energy and brains in its people to match the beauty of its physical setting."
-The Oregonian, Portland-Olympic City, September 5 1962.

The Olympic bid was to be made to the site selection committee of the United States Olympic Committee, set to meet in Chicago on October 15 1962. The winning site would then be submitted to the International Olympic Committee set to meet in Nairobi Kenya the following year.

On September 20 1962, the Portland Olympic Council presented drawings of the proposed Olympic site created by the Oregon Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, to much public acclaim.

"Portland, like a Cinderella gingerly slipping a foot into the glass slipper, tried on the 1968 Olympic Games for size Thursday and the picture was stunning."

-The Oregonian, September 21 1962, which continued to gush:

"It was a picture that left Portland almost beyond recognition, a Brasilia in the Willamette Valley with parking for 40,000 cars and a rowing race course on the Willamette and the men who would bring this all about were there to proclaim: "It can be done."

The drawings were then reproduced and combined with promotional material to make a 11 x 14 soft cover book titled:

(Click on images to expand)

It opens with two letters: one from Governor Mark Hatfield to Mayor Terry Schrunk, and one from Mayor Terry Schrunk to the United States Olympic Committee, followed by a standard chamber of commerce style promotional piece on Portland's virtues, tweaked to project a certain diverse, internationalist je ne sais quoi.

"Portland is Oregon's largest city with a population of approximately 372,000 and a metropolitan area of more than 800,000. As a major port reaching out to Alaska, Hawaii, South America and the Far East, the City is inevitably cosmopolitan in its makeup. Indeed, more than one person out of every five is either foreign born or fluent in his mother tongue. There are of course many Canadians who have settled in this area. A great portion of those of foreign extraction are from the Nordic countries of Europe and the United Kingdom, from Russia, China and Japan."

It continued with perhaps a bit of unintended honesty:

"But most of us who live here are hardly aware of this cosmopolitan facet of our City's personality. We are far more conscious of her reputation as the City of Roses."

The book highlights the Rose City Olympic Center:

The proposed site covered Delta Park and the Oregon Centennial Exposition grounds.

The Olympic Stadia was an outgrowth of the Portland Metropolitan Future Unlimited stadium proposal. It was to have seating for 60,000 with 20,000 more temporary seats and standing from for 10,000 for a total capacity of 90,000.

The Natatorium features three Olympic swimming pools.

The Delta Park Arena and Exhibit Center: fifteen acres of covered exhibit and arena space, including room for administrative, reception and medical functions.

The Olympic Village.

Portland's proposal extended beyond the Rose City Olympic Center by tying it to facilities in the rest of the city via the rapidly expanding freeway system:

Postcard of the Hilton Hotel on Broadway, slated to be the headquarters hotel of the XIX Olympiad.

"Portland's $9 million Memorial Coliseum, opened in late 1960, is the newest and largest completely air conditioned arena-exposition building in the Northwest. By 1968 it would be only five minutes driving time from the proposed Rose City Olympic Center. The existing arena, with seating of 14,000 and integrated exhibit space, is to be supplemented by a new 3,000 seat convention hall. This show place, located within walking distance of downtown Portland is supported by 3,000 parking spaces." -Portland Invites the XIX Olympiad.

The Olympic Boating Center, to be located at Sellwood on the "placid waters of the Willamette."

The Rose City Olympic Center linked by freeways to downtown, the Memorial Coliseum and the Olympic Boating Center. Planned additions to the freeway network (dotted lines) include the Sellwood, Mt Hood, Multnomah and Laurelhurst Freeways as well as a major tunnel under the West Hills linking downtown to the Beaverton-Hillsdale highway near Dosch Road.

It was over as fast as it began. On October 16 1962 Detroit Michigan was selected as the American contender for the 1968 games.

"Announcement of the Detroit nomination leaked out of the morning committee room only after Bob Kain, the selection committee chairman had broken away to inform Howard Hobson of the Portland delegation that our city didn't win. A trace of tears broke from the eyes of the ex-coach of the University of Oregon Tall Firs as he fumbled for a moment in asking...Why?"

-The Oregonian, October 17 1962, which continued...

"The reason was obvious enough to those close to the strategy it takes to capture a U.S. Olympics nomination: Portland had not the time for the delicate, person to person political work needed to swing a national committee to this town in the West."

"We were treated like gentlemen. They gave us a good hearing. Now we have to lay our plans for coming back for the 1972 games. We have laid the ground for '72. Let us not spoil the work that has been put into that."
-Rudie Wilhelm Jr. president of the Portland Chamber of Commerce.

Mayor Terry D. Schrunk echoed the sentiment:

"Now we have a job to do. We have got to go back to Portland and build a complex that will be there when we make our bid four years from now for the 1972 games."

In Portland supporters resumed work on a stadium package that, if successful, would have the city in a better position the next time around.

Three months later, there was a dramatic reversal of fortune. A bitter argument between Los Angeles and Detroit over the selection committee's decision forced a re-appraisal of the results. All of the cities that submitted proposals were invited back, this time to the full board of directors. With only a month for preparation, Portland's bid was reactivated.

For the second effort, Portland was more focused on publicity and politics. Mayor Schrunk issued a public challenge to the mayors of Detroit and Los Angeles to a fifty mile walking race from Portland to Salem, with the U.S. Olympic Bid as the prize.

A robust Portland, represented by Mayor Schrunk, guides a winded Detroit and 98 pound weakling Los Angeles on a fifty mile hike in this March 1963 Oregonian cartoon.

On the Political front, Governor Hatfield approached retired General Douglas MacArthur to advocate for Portland, to counter the star power of national figures Governor Pat Brown of California and Governor George Romney of Michigan (Jerry and Mitt's fathers). The general was initially favorable, but nothing came of Hatfield's efforts.

Not quite faded away...

Even with their energy and enthusiasm, few thought Portland stood much of a chance, a fact reflected by the Oregonian which called for a new stadium regardless of "the smallest outside chance of being selected for the 1968 Olympics at the reopened selection presentations in New York."

That sentiment that was proven true. Detroit was once again selected. The final tally: Detroit, 32 votes, Los Angeles, 4 votes, Portland, 2 votes, San Francisco, 1 vote, Philadelphia, 1 vote.

The following year, the 1968 Olympics were awarded to Mexico City when the International Olympic Committee met in Nairobi Kenya.

Portland returned to the dream of a new stadium and the 1972 Olympics. In May 1964 the stadium, now covered and known as "the Delta Dome" went down to defeat in an election by 9,000 votes. A bid for the 1972 Olympics was mounted later in the year, but when a second stadium measure failed, Portland's Olympic dream was essentially over. With it vanished Portland's best chance to re-take the international stage.

2009-07-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

A Landmark Post

When the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed their America's 11 most Endangered Places list two months ago, I wondered how a Portland list would look. I drew one up one and pictured a piece that highlighted eleven endangered Portland landmarks, each with a guest advocate to write a summary of their history and status. A sort of Portland preservation Super Friends.

In the two months that have passed, two landmarks at the top of my list have already been demolished: the Riverdale School, designed by A.E. Doyle and the Pagoda Restaurant in the Hollywood District.

Others remain in the news.

The University of Oregon's recent over-reach in wanting to place neon signs on the Old Town water tower upended Commissioner Randy Leonard's "compromise" on the Made in Oregon sign. It presents an opportunity to re-examine the proposed changes to the sign. The "compromise" involved the removal of the word University from U of O's proposed re-branding of the sign, leaving just the word Oregon. The signs current Made in Oregon logo is not "historic" per se, but it can't be denied that it is a landmark and local icon, even to the point of appearing on posters and books that promote Portland.

What is lost with the "compromise is a prominent visual element, the serif on the letter M in the word Made that adds to the sense of motion to the sign, a holdover from the original W of the White Satin and White Stag incarnations. The round O in Oregon has no such element (frankly, the U in University would). Whatever the case, community input has been lacking in what so far has been a power struggle between City Hall and the University of Oregon.

Memorial Coliseum's fate is still very much up in the air. A recent spate of letters to local media outlets appear designed to foster the impression there is massive sentiment in Portland to demolish the building (one letter writer in the Oregonian shilled that the only people who appreciated the building was a small group of elitist architects). The letters talk of putting Memorial Coliseum "back on the table" (read under the wrecking ball) as the possible solution to Portland's decades long effort to find a viable home for baseball.

What new use is possible for the Coliseum? How will it be paid for? It will require imagination. Here is some.

How about a Blazer game (or Blazer exposition game) in Memorial Coliseum with the current team in 1977 finery and appearances from the championship squad and local personalities from that era? The crowd would be encouraged to wear their uber-70s best. I for one would pay extra to see what I missed the first time. All proceeds would go to upkeep and upgrades to the building. One great night is not enough to solve the problem, but it could be part of the solution.

How many solar panels could the roof of Memorial Coliseum hold?

Portland prides itself on being Green and wants to market and brand itself as a Green city. A lot of places do, even Phoenix Arizona (check it out)

When it comes to re-use and preservation (the Greenest building is the one that is already built) Portland's record is not so impressive. Phoenix Arizona has a landmarks commission (like Portland has) and a Historic Preservation Office (not so Portland). It even uses preservation bonds to renovate buildings.

The Luhrs Tower in Phoenix Arizona, renovated by that city's preservation bonds.

If Memorial Coliseum is renovated for a sustainable use, Portland will have a major example of its Green commitment, a marketable story; otherwise, just talk.

Finally, speaking of imagination, after years of starving the Oregon Historical Society, the Oregon Legislature has approved to allocate part of the proceeds from re-issue of the classic New Frontier era "Pacific Wonderland" slogan license plates (originals modeled here by by beloved 1962 Ford Falcon, my 1980s ride) to support the Oregon Historical Society.

I'm also proud to report that Powells Books , my employer, has an offer for people to donate the proceeds from selling their used books at Powells to the Oregon Historical Society as a fully tax deductible donation. Details here.

Postscript- if anyone sees a 1962 blue Ford Falcon license Oregon 3Y-2440, let me know. I know someone who would really like to buy it back.

2009-07-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

Vacation

It's been too long between posts. A lot is going on and it's easier to look at microfilm when it is gray and wet outside, but to be honest, a long gap becomes self-perpetuating. The story I have been working on still needs more research. It will be finished, but it might be two more weeks. The gap grows larger, more intimidating by the minute. Better then to just jump back in.

Sometimes you have to leave home in order to see it better.
Friday I went to The Dalles.

On Third Street I came across an old billboard on the side of a building. Although half covered with ivy, it was clear that it referred to Portland's newspaper strike that began in 1959 against both the Oregonian and Oregon Journal and ended nearly five years later after the National Labor Relations Board ruled it illegal.

From what can be seen, it appears to say the Oregon Journal was being put together by strikebreakers. Perhaps it advertises a locally produced alternative or promotes The Reporter, the weekly newspaper that was put out by striking journalists in competition with the Oregonian and the Journal.

The end of the strike saw the demise of unions at Portland's two large daily papers. It was also the beginning of the end for the Oregon Journal whose circulation never regained pre-strike levels. Today the third longest strike in newspaper history is largely forgotten. To find a tangible remnant forty four years later in The Dalles is surprising, to say the least.

The Dalles was incorporated in 1857, just six years after Portland, but as it never reached the larger city's level of commercial activity, more remains from its early decades. One building in particular grabbed my attention:

Cut off from the rest of downtown by the Union Pacific tracks and from the Columbia River by I-84, the Waldron Drugstore, built in 1867, leads a precarious existence in no man's land.

After the Flood of 1880, First Street, which the building faced, was raised twelve feet, making the entrance below street level. Over time, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's right of way built up, so that the first six or so feet of the buildings front is buried by 129 years of accumulated ballast. Historic importance aside (Walt Whitman once stayed there when it was a boarding house) with no easy road access its prospects appear dim.

Despite its forlorn condition there is evidence of care. Almost certainly someone restored the billboard advertising passage to Portland via the Regulator Line. It is a vestige of The Dalles, Portland and Astoria Navigation Company, "the Regulator Line" established in the early 1890s as an alternative to what had become a rail only monopoly along the upper Columbia River. When a canal was opened around the Upper Cascades in 1896, the lines steamboats were able to pass from The Dalles to Portland, uninterrupted by the need to portage around the rapids.

The steamboat "Regulator" of The Dalles, Portland and Astoria Navigation Company on the Columbia.

The Waldron Drugstore with the Gateway underpass in the distance.

The fact the nearby Gateway underpass mirrors the roof line on the Waldron Drugstore shows some appreciation for the venerable structure. The underpass, built in 2003, reconnects the downtown to the river by allowing passage beneath I-84 (think of Portland's old Harbor Drive writ huge).

As an example of the earliest cast-iron buildings that replaced its white-washed flat-fronted frontier downtown, Portland has nothing like the Waldron Drugstore, but it did once and could so again.

On Front, next to the ornate Fecheimer & White Building, is Portland's earliest commercial structure, the Hallock & McMillan Building. When it was built in 1857 James Buchanan was President, Oregon had yet to become a state and the Union was whole.

The Hallock & McMillan and Fechheimer & White buildings in 2008 and the early 1940s (from The Grand Era of Cast-Iron Architecture in Portland Oregon by William John Hawkins III).

The cast-iron facade on the Hallock & McMillan building, like that of the Waldron Drugstore was modest in scale but revolutionary in relation to its wooden pioneer neighbors. It was replaced in a 1940s re-model which might have saved the building from the decade and a half of demolitions in the area that followed.

An 1859 view of the Hallock & McMillan Building.

Its neighbor on the other side of the Fecheimer & White building was not so lucky. The Ladd Building of 1853 was the first cast-iron fronted building in Portland. It was demolished in 1940, as the momentum for Front Avenue "improvements" was gaining ground. Its iron work was very similar to what can be seen on the Waldron Drugstore today.

The Ladd Building of 1853 (and the edge of the Fecheimer & White Building).

The cast-iron of the Ladd Building, 1940, during demolition.

The half buried cast-iron of the Waldron Drugstore, The Dalles Oregon, July 3 2009.

In The Dalles, cast-iron buildings never approached the scope, scale and unity of what would later be built in Portland, but the material was utilized for the same reasons. Cast-iron was a fast way to build a substantial city on the frontier which lacked the large number of artisans needed to create the stonework the iron was sought to replicate. Strong, modular and manufactured in kit form, what is often looked at as old-fashioned was in fact modern.

The Hallock & MacMillan Buidling (1857), the Fecheimer & White Building (1885) and the site of the Ladd Building, (1853-1940, roughly between the streetlight and Fecheimer & White). July 4 2009.

The blank face of the Hallock & McMillan building and the lot adjoining the Fecheimer & White Building are opportunities should someone choose to revive a portion of Portland's early street-scape. Design guidelines proposed for the Skidmore Oldtown National Historic District could incentivise portions of the areas restoration through the re-introduction of stored cast-iron facades or fiberglass restoration.

In the meanwhile, a visit to The Dalles can be time well spent.

The Pagoda

The Hollywood neighborhood- almost a city within a city. The Hollywood Theatre, Poor Richard's and the Pagoda, Hollywood has a look and feel all of its own. With the recent demolition of the Pagoda Restaurant, it has less.

No one could call the Pagoda culturally significant or hugely historic, but that did not make it any less a landmark. When Key Bank purchased the site for a new bank branch, neighborhood groups and fans of mid-century Americana hoped that perhaps at least the pagoda element of the restaurant could be saved and incorporated into the new building. Key Bank's commitment to neighborhood sentiment was made clear last week when the Pagoda was knocked down. Portland is poorer for it.

What makes a landmark? History, aesthetic significance, local sentiment? On Sunday July 12 at 6:30am, early risers can tune into Outlook Portland on NW 32 when Rick Emerson hosts a discussion about Portland's architecture and landmarks with Brian Libby of Portland Architecture, John Chilson of Lost Oregon and yours truly.

We tie together a number of recent issues such as Memorial Coliseum, the Made in Oregon sign, a neon rose on John Yeon's Portland Visitors Information Center, recent and pending demolitions and the encroachment of the generic. If it is too early for you, the show will also appear on NW 32s youtube channel within the month.

Next up, cue Dave Brubeck's Take Five for Portland's big dreams on the New Frontier...