Historic Hood River
Name the City
9-12-2011
Notes
This glass negative had a cellulose nitrate film negative melted onto it. Fortunately, the smelly brown goo and chunks of film were stuck to the non-emulsion side. After an hour of careful work I was able to liberate this negative, only to note with disappointment that it wasn’t an image of Hood River.
A few days later another image in the collection provided its true location. Can you guess the city? I’ll give you a big hint. Something in this image definitively places it in the year 1905. And that in turn leads directly to the city’s identity.
Tomorrow’s image will give away the answer, so you have 24 hours to test your detective skills.
l.e.
Well, I will wait for Spinsur to win the prize once again.
But….I know Portland had the World’s Fair in 1905 and this yard is full of roses.
l.e.
And Arthur…..it truly is a lovely photo. Thank you for spending the time restoring it. It will be interesting to find out what the connection was to Hood River.
Ranger
I’d say Portland as well, based on the "Dome" in the background. I seem to remember seeing images from the Worlds Fair or "Centennial" exhibition with a building like that.
Spinsur
I think l.e. you’ve won today’s wonderful prize. I’d have to agree based on the dome and Arthur’s hints, and the level of "development" (curbs, concrete sidewalks, power lines, asphalt, etc, it’s Portland celebrating Lewis and Clark 100 years after their expedition at the worlds fair. Couldn’t find a great link on phone, but if you search, there’s a fair number of pix.
Charlott
Definitely the "Lewis and Clark Exposition" in Porlland out by where Montgomery Wars and Vaughn Street home of the Portland Beavers. My grandparents went there for their honeymoon and I have a beautiful vase that my grandpa bought my grandma.
l.e.
Hmmm. At first I assumed the dome would belong to the Oriental Building, but now I think it must belong to the Agricultural Building of the Lewis and Clark Exposition..
Arthur
I guess this was too easy for the HHR crowd. Yes, this is NW Portland with the dome of the Agriculture Building at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition peeking out. Tomorrow you’ll get to see the Expo in all its glory, as photographed by a Hood River resident.
Charlott
My great-grandfather wrote an article about the "Hood Riverites" taking the train for a day at the exposition in his column for The Glacier. Quite interesting.
Ellen Dittebrandt
That is it. The Building was moved to St Johns on N. Ivanhoe St the most top of the dome was removed and the rounded front of the building also removed It is a McMenamins now. It is also a regular on the Simpson as there town hall.
Ellen Dittebrandt
Whoops The building in the Photo is not the one I am talking about, but they were right next to each other, both having domes. The one I thought was the The National Cash Register Company Building.
Ellen Dittebrandt
This House is in the area of the fair. the hills in the background are the west hills. I would say this is either a dock worker or Fair workers home. This place is close to the riverside of the fair.
Michael Prasuhn
Hi, I tried to leave a detailed comment with some links to maps of the expo, and links to Google maps that would help determine exactly where this house was, but I kept hitting the spam filter, so I’ll just leave a note here that I think this house was on the west side of 22nd ave somewhere north of Wilson street. If you look this up on Google streetview you can see a very similar house still stands near the corner of 22nd and Wilson.
Arthur
Here’s the Google maps link Michael tried to leave: http://g.co/maps/6na9m
It’s certainly a very similar house, with much of the same detail.
Jim
Although the 2nd story window placement has moved, the small details seem identical. The placement of the steps and front door are reverse which means they are not images of the same house or the historic image negatives must have been printed flipped.
Jim
I must also add, this is an amazing juxtaposition.
Arthur
Jim, I too wondered whether the negative was flipped, but we scanned this from a glass plate which is really hard to get wrong. This one had a cellulose nitrate negative melted onto it so I spent a good long time cleaning it and got to know it very well! I think this is just a very similar house which was probably repeated many times in that area. There are definitely other examples still around (like this: http://g.co/maps/3ghhn) but the one Michael found seems to be the best preserved.
nels
Possibly one of those Sears pre-built houses so popular at that time?