Historic Hood River
United Brethren Gymnasium
3-3-2020
Notes
We’ve seen the United Brethren Church at the NE corner of 6th and Oak before, but I don’t think I’ve shown the impressive gymnasium which was added in 1901. The building cost $1200 to construct, and was furnished with $200 worth of the athletic equipment, including a horizontal bar, swinging and trick rings, mats, punching bags, indoor baseball, Indian clubs and dumb bells. It also had hot and cold showers and a public reading room.
nels
Burned down? Torn down? Quite possibly the largest building in town at that time?
ArthurB
That will take more research. It was shown on the 1916 Sanborn map, but replaced with apartments by the 1928 map. Unfortunately we don’t have any mapping in between.
ArthurB
Did a quick Glacier search– in the September 14, 1922 issue they mention the church building hasn’t been used for services for 7 years and was offered for sale to the American Legion.
nels
Looks like another HHR unsolved mystery! Something will pop up.
Jeffrey W Bryant
They still had oak trees in what is now the middle of Oak Street.
L.E.
Beautiful building. Milton Wright, the father of Orville and Wilbur Wright, was a United Brethren minister. He spent some time in Oregon. He was also somehow related to the Lyle family that founded the town of Lyle.
ArthurB
L.E., while researching this I ran across an account of a lecture at this UB church about Wilbur and Orville’s time in Philomath OR. The claim was the airplane had its roots in Oregon.
Mary Bartmess Kramer
My great grandfather Sam Bartmess brother was a UB minister and he knew the Wrights. I was told he started the congregation here.
Arlen Sheldrake
I’m trying to visualize how they built that steple"¦"¦..
Jeffrey Bryant
The Oregon Historic Sites Database shows the Oak Apartments at 516 Oak St as being built in 1925. However, the Hood River Glacier indicates that the United Brethren church steeple was removed and the building was remodeled to create the Oak Apartments, which opened in 1925. So the core of the facility goes back to the United Brethren church building. The links the the Hood River Glacier are where another picture of the UB church on this site can be found. I think the OHS database needs to be corrected.
Jeffrey Bryant
The Hood River Glacier of 1891-03-14 says the United Brethren church is being built in Hood River.
https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1891-03-14/ed-1/seq-2/