Historic Hood River
W.G. Snow Blacksmith
Notes
This is a badly damaged negative, but I’ve cleaned it up enough to show a view of downtown Hood River we haven’t seen before. You can orient yourself with the W.G. Snow Blacksmith and Wagonmaker shop, which we saw in this image on 4th between Cascade and Columbia (where Double Mountain Brewery is currently located). We’re looking through the lot which previously held the Davidson Box Factory, and is currently the Elks parking lot.
The cars and wagons suggest a date of around 1920. According to a sign next to the blacksmith shop the Barnes Circus is due in town May 29th. Some time with the newspaper archives could pin down the date.
I suspect Alva Day’s interest in this view is that the lot in the foreground is being used to store utility poles for deployment around the valley. I think this image can be viewed as the precursor to this one and this one. In fact we’ve got another frame which shows the linemen in the lot hooking up a pole to the truck.
Here’s my best guess as to the camera location, though I think it was above street level.
Tags: 1920s, 3rd Street, Alva Day, automobile, blacksmith, electricity, Snow WG
charlott
W. G. Snow was Willis Gaylord Snow, who came to Hood River from Michigan. Snow died in 1918, so I think it had to be prior to that, unless someone else was running his business under his name.
Rawhyde
Does anybody have any concept of what the cost of a picture was back in Alva’s day? In other words, what was the cost every time Alva clicked the shutter?
l.e.
Evidently Willis G Snow, patented a box nailing press.
http://www.google.es/patents/US1102992
Maybe it was used at the Davidson Box Factory.
Longshot2
How would you like to go up that ladder onto the roof?
Arthur
Great find, l.e. It’s a safe bet that when the box factory foreman needed something fabricated he went across the street to the blacksmith shop. The fact that Mr. Snow went through the trouble to get a patent shows he was thinking big.