Historic Hood River
Hood River, Circa 1905
5-28-2015
Notes
I’ve zoomed in a bit on this view of Hood River from the White Salmon bluff to test our ability to date a photograph. Here’s the process I went through: OR&N railroad, >1883. Cupola on Mt. Hood Hotel, >~1900. Masonic Hall Building, >1901. Waucoma Hotel, >1904. George Crowell Building instead of Hall Building, <1909. No Mt. Hood Railroad, <1906. So, with >1904 and <1906 I think 1905 is a pretty safe bet. Since the trees are fully leafed out, I'll go out on a limb and say summer of 1905.
L.E.
Early summer. The river is high and swift.
Neat photo.
Longshot
Here is a contemporary view from a similar vantage point. Would be neat to be able to slide back and forth between the two.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Hood_River_OR_-_aerial.jpg
Arthur
Longshot, unfortunately the angle is a bit off. I think the old image is from Hospital Hill, while the newer one looks like the White Salmon bluff. If you’re interested I can show you the full old image, including Mt. Hood and the surrounding hills.
Longshot
I agree the picture was taken from a very high vantage point. I was even wondering if it could have been taken from a balloon?
Would love to see the whole image.
Susan Turner
I’d say that the "contemporary" shot could well be photoshopped, since I can’t feature that Mt. Hood would look so large from that vantage point. Pretty photo, though!
Arthur
Longshot and I examined the original image carefully and we both came to the conclusion (independently) that it was taken from Strawberry Mountain (east side). I’ll publish a comparison at a later date, but there are many details that allow a determination of the camera position.
Susan, the contemporary shot from Wikipedia doesn’t look Photoshopped to me. It shows what a very nice telephoto lens can do. The lens in our eyes is much wider angle (focal length) so distant objects look comparatively smaller.
Bill Pattison
I would also like to see a companion shot from the same location today. Wow.
Bill P.