Historic Hood River
Aspirin, aspirin, aspirin, exlax…
Notes
Morganne’s Monday object is a 1961 record book from our county jail. It came as part of a collection from the family of a former county sheriff. As you can see, the work of he jailhouse medic was pretty routine– lots of aspirin and exlax. But occasionally they needed to call in the local doctor for serious cases, which frequently involved mental illness. You can see here a patient suffering from delusions he was Jesus Christ was prescribed seconal. Seconal was a barbiturate which was produced up until last year.
I’ve redacted names for a couple of reasons– people in the county jail were not necessarily convicted of anything, the records are medical in nature, and it’s possible some of them are still alive. I don’t know if this redaction is necessary, but I’d rather err on the side of preserving the dignity of the folks who passed through the county jail.
Jeffrey Bryant
I’ve read articles in the 1924/25 Hood River Glacier where about 30 transients at a time were given a place to stay in the jail overnight to give them a meal. get them out of the cold, and keep them from getting into trouble during the night. Then they were sent on their way out of town in the morning.
Arlen L sheldrake
Father John L told stories of his trips across the Columbia River dropping off transients in Washington as a HR County Deputy Sheriff in the 1940s. yes, we had homeless back in the day but I think the drug of choice was wine.
Kurt Cyrus
This was just about the time frame when I toured the jailhouse with my cub scout den, or possibly a school field trip. I was already pretty nervous, and then one of the inmates thought it would be funny to lunge at the bars and growl at us. I didn’t need any Exlax at that moment, I can tell you.