Historic Hood River
703 Oak Street
9-2-2015
Notes
This impressive house was built in 1892 for Mark Harrison. The first story is an unusual log construction.
This is also known as the “Captain Blowers House.” I’m not sure when it was removed, but this is now the site of the parking lot for the county office building (Dean Building).
Norma
The Dean Building is on State Street.
Charlott
What a beautiful old home, full of "gingerbread." So sad it is now only remembered in history.
That little window near the bay windows look as if it might be stained glass.
Love the old wheelbarrow parked there.
Bill Seaton
My Mom and I lived in this house in 1944. At that time, it was owned by Earl and Phoebe Koburg. Part of the rental agreement was that each month, Mom would give Phoebe her liquor rations. We had a one-room apartment on the second floor that had an old wood cook stove for cooking and heating. We shared a bathroom with the Coburg’s daughter, Mrs. Orr, and Ed Vannet (Ed lived in the attic while he was finishing school at HRHS).
L.E.
What a fascinating house!
Those logs look too uniform to be real logs.
Were they logs when you lived there Bill? And, I am curious who provided the fire wood for your wood cook stove.
Was it cold in the winter?
rwf
The Dean building is on State St, but the parking lot is on Oak.
Bill Seaton
Yes, they were real logs when I lived there. I think they had been milled so that they fit so precisely. We got our wood from Jim Kinney’s Woodyard. I remember that the fire would go out overnight, and it would be cold in the winter mornings.
Arthur
I should have been clearer– this home was at the north edge of the parking lot across the street from the Dean building. There are a few signs of the former dwellings on those parcels that you can see from the sidewalk on the south side of Oak. I’m not sure which indentation was for the entrance to #703, but maybe Bill can tell us.
judy
If the walls could talk! What a history this house has. Great to see the picture.
L.E.
Judge Marcus Vernon Harrison:
This was written before he moved to Hood River.
JUDGE M.V. HARRISON. "“ This early builder of Arlington, Oregon, and highly esteemed gentleman, was born in West Virginia in December, 1857, and in 1865 accompanied his parents to Indiana. He enjoyed educational advantages in a graded school at Dayton, gaining a good foundation for his later studies. In 1877 he began reading law under J.R. Carnahan at Lafayette, Indiana, but after a year abandoned this project and formed the purpose of learning the requirements and forms of mercantile life, and in pursuance of this plan accepted a position as clerk in a store.
In 1880 he sought a larger life upon our Pacific coast and came hither, locating in the Yakima country. The following year he undertook the hard and adventurous trip back across the Rocky Mountains as one of the drovers of a band of cattle to Cheyenne. In the fall of 1882 he returned to our coast, locating at Arlington, where he opened a store, having an excellent assortment of goods, "“ the first stock of the kind placed in Arlington. In 1883 he disposed of this business and engaged with Mr. J.W. Smith, who had in the meantime brought in a very large stock of goods. In 1883 he established the hardware business, which he still manages with satisfactory results.
In his public relations, Mr. Harrison has been active and efficient. He has served as councilman in the city of Arlington ever since its incorporation, being at present a member of the board. In December, 1888, he was appointed county judge to fill the unexpired term of W.W. Steiwer. He is a member of the Democratic state central committee. The Judge has been one of the real fathers of Arlington, and one of the most active men to develop the vicinity and surrounding country, ever since there was an attempt in 1880 to build a city here upon the drifting sands by the bank of the Columbia.
He was married at Lafayette, Indiana, to Miss Sophia Gregory in 1882, and has two children, Dale V. and Lelah E.
Mrs. D.M. Coon says:
M.V. HARRISON AND FAMILY
   Before his arrival in Hood River, M.V. Harrison lived in an Eastern Oregon county where he was probate judge, so he was usually spoken of as Judge Harrison. He was a public spirited man and took an active interest in civic affairs. He erected a handsome and substantial residence on Oak Street and owned and operated a dry goods and grocery store until he moved to Portland and engaged in the Real Estate Business. His son Dale was purser on the boats of the White Collar Line until steamboats became obsolete on the Middle Columbia.
The Harrisons moved to Portland in 1900 where he became an associate of Jacob Kamm. He passed away in Portland in 1942. His wife, Sophia, passed away in 1948. Her mother was a Bartmess. Her sister married James E. Hanna.
Their son Dale is featured as a little boy with a bicycle in HHR photo #219.
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=219
DK
Sure looks a lot like this house on 9th and Oak
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.7086012,-121.5200942,3a,75y,117.96h,86.19t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1jx83A7kKbGkqymjSEfZlQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
Not exactly but close, I wonder….
cathleen
it sure does look alot like that photo DK. what if there are logs under that siding!
Tracey Saucy
Marcus V. Harrison was my great-grandfather. The house was built in 1891:
"M. V. Harrison’s handsome residence is completed except the inside finishing. The doors are to be of birds-eye sugar pine, and are being made at the factory. He expects to move into it next month, and it is beyond a question that he has the handsomest house in Wasco county, and we believe in Eastern Oregon."
(From the The Hood River Glacier, 19 Sep 1891, pg 3)
The home was sold via a Sheriff’s sale a few short years later (perhaps to Mr. Blowers), the family lore being that Marcus was not a particularly aggressive collector of bills from his customers and he suffered a reversal of fortune during the economic depression of the mid 1890’s.