Historic Hood River
1900 Cataract
12-17-2012
Notes
Special rules for this Monday mystery: NO research allowed. Google will just ruin your fun trying to guess what that apparatus is in the back of Alva Day’s truck. Let’s hear your uneducated guesses. In fact if you do know what this is, sit out this mystery. I promise it will be more fun this way.
Check out that mud. It’s hard to imagine what it was like here in rainy season before everything was paved over. And by an amusing coincidence, that has something to do with today’s mystery.
Jeffrey Bryant
It looks like there are chains on the tires. Maybe the device was for sanding the roads.
charlott
I tend to agree that might be what it is. Wouldn’t hold much sand though. Maybe just to use in a very small area.
With our weather going on out there right now things might be mudded in much like this photo. Can you imagine cleaning boots……..all the time in this type of weather, without all the modern things we can use now?
l.e.
Looks like it is a sunny day so maybe things will dry out.
Where was the photo taken? Since the ground is level, is it up on the Heights looking north?
I haven’t a clue what it is, but since it is Alva Day, it is probably something electrical.
RALPH
The first bio-diesel vehicle?
Steve
I think its an orchard spray rig on that old pick up.
Arlen Sheldrake
On what appears to be a tank, maybe it is an early spray rig, are the numbers 1900. But I also have no real idea what the rig might be. The
girl seems to be standing on what looks like a walk way, maybe compressed
mud.
Yes, this picture brings real meaning to the "mud room" many old houses had. And in a way, some of us are back to that process with taking our shoes off before coming in the house.
Nice way to start the week Arthur. Arlen
Paul
Something to do with laundry, appears to have a motor attached?
Either that or a side hill gouger trap! 😉
Arlen Sheldrake
Paul may be on to it as that pole thing could be some sort of wringer to squeeze out the water. As in "don’t get your tits caught in the wringer"… We had a couple of old washers with wringers at the Brooklyn Roundhouse for washing greasey work clothes….Many visitors had never before seen a wringer washing machine…. Also appears to be a lever to "swish" the clothes; maybe this was totally mechanical, versus electrified.
Did HR have a lot of side hill grougers???? Arlen
Judy
Looks like some kind of pump to me.
Jill Stanford
I think a washing machine of some sort (!) is being delivered on a wet and muddy spring day. The name Cataract could conjure up water cascading over rocks. . . hmmm . . . maybe not.
Rawhyde
Noting the long hose and Arthur’s rainy season hint, is it a mosquito abatement dispenser (oil or whatever chemical for ponds)?
R Hyde
Maybe an early power-washing machine?
Arthur
Some good guesses. I first thought it was the bucket from a steam shovel like they used to dig the Panama Canal. But as you’ve probably found from Google it’s a plain old washing machine, with the top part to wring the clothes dry by squeezing them between rollers. Useful with all that mud.
Or else it’s the top of the time machine from Dr. Who.
Ellen Dittebrandt
An extra motor to drive the back wheels for mud and snow.
Ellen Dittebrandt
The First 4 wheel drive pick up in HR
nels
As a very young child I remember a lot of commotion and was eventually told my older brother had stuck his hand in the wringer. That must have been an experience – hope there was something like an emergency release on it.
charlott
My cousin, Diane Petri, also tangled with her arm in the wringer. She was pretty mangled and was scarred from it. Our old wringer type washer had a lever that you could hit and it would release that terrible portion of the machine.
Lori Mentzer
It’s a ringer washer. I remember the one my grandmother had! Scared the CRAP outta me!! A team of horses couldn’t drag me anywhere NEAR that thing! LOL And yes, houses USED to have mud rooms! Where you would hang up your coat and boots. If you don’t like mud or wind….Hood River isn’t the place for you! 🙂
GMF
1900 Cataract clothes washer
Delano V
Interesting guesses and comments fun reading the depth of knowledge of posters 🙂