Historic Hood River

Notes

While you may enjoy learning Hood River History over your morning coffee, imagine getting a little exercise and interacting with live people at the same time? That’s the idea behind the museum’s popular walking tours, which have returned for a new season.

Walking tours will take place every Friday at 9am, from July 19 through September 6.  Guests should be able to walk 1/2 mile on downtown sidewalks with some gentle incline.  Comfortable walking shoes, sunscreen and a bottle of water recommended.

Tickets are $10 per person and available at www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org or at the museum. Admission to the museum is included with your walking tour ticket.  Walks are limited to 12 guests.

Meet at the salmon fountain/ flagpole at 2nd and State Streets, next to Horsefeathers Hotel. Note that the tour does NOT start at The History Museum.

For questions, email info@hoodriverhistorymuseum.org or call 541-386-6772.

Walking tour guide Suzi Conklin has shared these thoughts (perhaps this is the first “Conklin’s Corner?”):

I believe that to know our history is to know our present.  To get a true “sense of place” you must appreciate how a place has evolved.  That’s what we try to communicate in our walking tours.

There isn’t a lot of flat land in Hood River.  The contours of the geography mean our downtown retail district is just seven or so blocks wide and just three blocks the other way.  Standing on the sidewalk at Oak and Second you can see the three earliest brick buildings in Hood River.  The earliest bricks used were locally sourced and of low quality, so we’re especially lucky the building owners have made the extra effort to protect these artifacts from the early days of our downtown.

On one of my first tours I was asked about the Safeway store in Hood River.  In this image you see the first Safeway on the south side of Oak between 1st and 2nd Streets,  where Andrew’s Pizza was.  Safeway stores were privately owned back then.  From here the Safeway moved to the the site of Pietro’s Pizza, and then the former Hood River News building before settling on West Cascade.

Here are just a few of the things you will learn on our Historic Walking Tours of downtown:

• • Why did spa soakers run out to the street naked from the Kresse Building?
• • How many bike shops did Hood River at the turn of the last century?
• • What was the sneaky reason the Waucoma Hotel was renamed the Hotel Oregon?
• • What secret society occupied part of the Heilbonner building?
• • How may steps are in Gil’s Stair?
• • How did John Wilson revolutionize the fruit industry?

I hope to see you on our next walking tour!

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