Historic Hood River
Babies on Parade
11-14-2022
Notes
At first glance this was one of hundreds of parade images in our collection, but the parade float is not one you would find in a parade today. The float features a nurse looking over an assortment of babies, presumably to advertise the services of the local hospital. Using babies in displays like this wasn’t unusual in this era. The Lewis and Clark Exposition featured an infant incubators building, complete with “live infants”. The Dionne quintuplets lived in a nursery with a public viewing area.
Bennett Bros. on the corner of 4th and Cascade was a Dodge Bros., Chandler and Cleveland automobile dealer, as well as Brunswick tires.
Jeff Bryant
At least there was a net to keep the children from falling off.
James
Whoa,, nice building that Bennett Bros garage. Reminiscent of the Franz building. Today the Elks lodge sits there, and it is not the same building? Did the original Bennett garage get torn down?
ArthurB
Yes, this building got torn down. I bet its bricks are in chimneys all around town. I have a chimney with some painted bricks, though I think it as built before this building was demolished. Sanborn maps show this structure still in existence as a garage in 1942, our most recent map. Elks Lodge was built in 1949, though I’m not sure about the history of the western portion of the Elks building
L.E.
One history article says the Bennett brothers ran the Hood River news for eight years before WWI. At the end of the war, the brothers established a garage.
Cecelia
Museum archives indicate that in 1909 C.P. Sonnichsen and W.H. Walton purchased the HR News-Letter and soon changed the name to the HR News. In 1911 R.B and L.S. Bennett bought the paper. In 1917 Sonnichsen returned to Hood River and started another print shop that he sold in 1918 and bought half interest in the HR News. Confirms L.E.’s comment.