Historic Hood River
Summer Reading
Notes
Meet the Hood River Glacier, Volume 1 Number 1. On June 8, 1889, the residents of Hood River read about the destruction of much of Seattle in a massive fire and the destruction of Johnstown Pennsylvania in a massive flood.
Library director Buzzy Nielsen has been working to get historic local newspapers online for public access. The project goals include The Dalles Chronicle, The Maupin Times, The Hood River Glacier, The Hood River News, The Hood River Sun, and The Bonneville Dam Chronicle. The first batch of issues of the Glacier has just come online for you summer reading pleasure. Eventually we hope to have all issues through their final issue in 1933, but current funding should get us through the end of 1922. Currently issues from 1889 through 1906 are online.
I’ve spent many hours searching this database for juicy details on stories we’ve already covered in HHR. I’ve learned that E.L. Smith got to meet President Harrison when he stopped in Hood River in 1891 from the May 9, 1891 issue. I learned that our first fire engine was actually a factory reconditioned model which previously served Pocatello Idaho from the November 17, 1904 issue, and the details of Norman Williams’ trip to the gallows for the murder of the Nesbit women are in the July 27, 1905 issue.
I’ll warn you the interface is a little clunky, but with a little effort you’ll be learning more about Hood River one hundred years ago than you could possibly need. Text is searchable, though I’ll warn you the OCR isn’t perfect so you have to be a little creative in running your text searches. But this is an exciting batch of Hood River history at our fingertips, and it will be even richer as more newspapers are added to the archive.
And some late breaking news on 120 year old newspapers: You’ll notice there are some pretty large holes in the coverage for the earliest years. Apparently these issues were never microfilmed, so they were not available to the project for digitizing. Matt and I spent a few hours Thursday deep in the library archives, finding the only existing copies of many of the issues which are missing from microfilm. We found more than 250 issues of the Glacier which are missing from the film and fill in some very critical holes in coverage of the 1890s. We’re scoping a project to scan the 1000 plus pages of very fragile newsprint before they are lost forever. We’ll let you know more about this project soon.
charlott
It appears that they had not gathered any Hood River News, at least not on this page. Both the fire in Seattle and the Johnstown flood would have been making nation wide news. Have done considerable reading on the Johnstown flood. Such devestation, which quite possibly could have been averted had it not been for the "rich"……
Anxious to see other pages of these old newspapers…..
l.e.
Oh my….now I will not get anything done for days, as I will have my nose buried in old newspapers.
I have noticed before that online newspapers will have gaps in the years that are available, even though the newspaper was in business and being printed. Maybe it is because not all issues or years, were microfilmed. Sometimes you will read that the issues or records were destroyed in a fire or flood.
Online preservation has its benefits.
Thanks you guys for working to make this available.
Arllen Sheldrake
GREAT news! This is a wonderful project that will be appreciated for many generations including this old fogger…… Arlen
charlott
Lower left hand corner ad for Columbia Brewery in The Dalles. You can see the building it was located in, at the foot of Brewery Grade. This was opened quite early on in 1867 by Charles Schanno. He no doubt sold out to the other man. The brewery closed due to prohibition in 1916.
Arthur
Microfilms of the Glacier were apparently made in the 1960s. We’re guessing they skipped some of the years because the hard copies were not in great shape even then, and they may not have been willing to lose them in the filming process. Also, some issues were already lost by then. Matt and I agree with Buzzy that the "missing" issues are in such poor state that this is the last chance to preserve them for history. It’s worth taking the risk they will turn to dust as we scan them, because they are not usable for research in their current state anyway.
longshot
Would the Library of Congress or the National Archives have any of the missing issues I wonder?
Jill
This new technology sure beats the day my sister and I spent in the basement of the library in 1978 going through dusty old newspapers (and sneezing) as we searched out family history. We did find an article that reduced us to hysterical tears about Truman Butler doffing his hat to the newly wed and returned from their honeymoon Albert Peters, stepped back and vanished down the freight elevator that had just opened behind him. A few weeks later, according to the paper, he was back at work.
Arthur
It’s pretty unlikely hard copies of the Glacier exist anywhere beyond our library’s copies. OHS and U of O, the two statewide repositories, only have the microfilm. We’ll do our best to fill the holes, but the ones we don’t have are likely lost forever.
Jeffrey Bryant
I’ve been waiting for years for the old papers to be available on-line. Thanks for your help in making it finally happen.
Jeffrey Bryant
I’m glad to see that the Hood River Glacier is now available on-line through 1922.
Arthur
You beat me to it– I’ll be announcing that with Monday’s post. Also Matt and I are quickly filling in some of the gaps. We’re scanning 1894 and 1895 now. Mostly we’re getting nice clean scans, though a few of the issues are pretty far gone. Mostly there are just two columns of local news, so we’re thankful when those columns are legible.
1923-1933 will be under separate funding, so it may be a while before they appear.
Jeffrey Bryant
Any feel for when the missing issues will be available on-line for searching?