Historic Hood River
Recent History
Notes
Sometimes recent history can be harder to get right than more distant history. Plenty of people remember it– they just remember it differently. That’s the case with some of the details of the Hood River waterfront development.
These two buildings appeared very shortly after the waterfront fill was completed in 1963. This aerial view is from a 1969 survey. I believed they were from the “Clark Door Factory” but it doesn’t look like that is true. This one frame is actually sharp enough to see signs on the buildings. The northernmost building is labeled “Nichols” and the southern building has a stylized logo that looks like a lower case “ft”. I believe the blur below “ft” says “Fiber Tech”.
I’m told that by 1990 Clark Door was in a building that later became the Expo Center (now the site of Ferment Brewing). We have a 1991 image which confirms there was an industrial building there the same footprint of the later Expo Center, though there is no clear signage.
Time to strain those brains and try to remember: when did Clark Door show up? Was it always in one building, or did it start in the “Nichols Building” in this image? And who was “Fiber Tech?”
Tags: 1960s, aerial view, Clark Door, Hood River delta, Nichols Basin, Nichols Boat Works, Port of Hood River
Dan
I spot Toms Drive Up in the lower left left.
Marilyn
I worked at Clark Door for two years. The building was finished in 1981 and it was the only one that Clark Door operated out of. Yes, it did later become the Expo center.
Toms drive in was the go to lunch place.
Arthur Babitz
Thanks for the definitive history of Clark Door, Marilyn.
Since Tom’ Drive Up came up, can anyone tell me if Tom’s and VIP’s were in operation at the same time? By the time I got here it was just VIP’s above the gas station.
nels
Was all of this soil dredged from the river?
Rountree Rouse
I think Clark Door was always in that blue building. Or maybe it was just called that after they moved. I have an aerial image of Event Site completion in 1992 and it is there along with the building that became the Expo Center to the west. I remember Hi-Tech Sailboards occupied the blue/CD building for a short time in the early 1990s.
ArthurB
Rountree, I’m not seeing color here! Which building is blue?
JEC
The building on the north was painted a light blue color and was built after the southern building. The southern building was first occupied by a German company and as a result it was named the Jucho Building after the company name. After Jucho moved out (bankruptcy?) it sat empty for some years until Fiber Tech moved in with the intention of manufacturing shipping pallets out of fiberglass. I never saw any fiberglass pallets at DFG.
another Hukari
Arthur- I think VIP’s was put in in the mid- late 70’s , and where Toms had been was a service station. I KNOW Tom’s was still open in ’75, when I got my drivers license because someone backed into my car there! And by ’77 I had a friend who waited tables at VIP’s. But I am not sure if they overlapped at all.
Melody Shellman
another Hukari, the service station was next to Tom’s (to the left, outside the frame). It was a Union 76, run by my father Terry Shellman from 1968-1988, IIRC.
Rusty Neff
Fun fact. I was the newsperson at KIHR when Clark Door was built. The building was constructed differently than the others on the port. The walls were concrete that was poured while they were flat on the ground. They then were tilted up in place. It was interesting to see it go up.
JEC
The prow of the USS Banning is visible, making this photo no later than 1969.