Historic Hood River
City Water
Notes
Here’s a nice picture for a hot dry day. This is the overflow from one of the city’s water sources in late August, 1941, as photographed by Alva Day. The overflow joins the waters from Lost Lake in the Lake Branch of the Hood River.
Hood River built a pipeline up to this spring near Lost Lake in 1929. Water entered the pipeline at this box and traveled down to the city’s 5,000,000 gallon reservoir. The pipeline was replaced in a project which was completed last year, though this spring looks much the same.
Also, a reminder about the museum’s new series of downtown walking tours. They’re running twice a week: Tuesdays at 10AM, or Saturdays at 4PM, from now until 7/28 (except no tour July 4th). Learn about our city’s architecture, history and culture. Tours start at Overlook Memorial Park (bottom of the stairs) and last about 1 hour, $5 suggested donation. You can call the museum for more info: 541-386-6772
Kenn
You state the pipeline was replaced last year, is the city water source and pipe route the same ?.
Arthur
The city water source is the same, though the new pipeline was rerouted in some areas to follow roads for easier maintenance.
Charlott
Where was the reservoir? Was it the one that was just below the Hood River Hospital?
AndyB
Was the concrete box at the top of the indian cr. trail part of this whole thing?
ArthurB
There is a large city reservoir on Portland Drive, and two smaller ones, one at the hospital and the second on Wilson. They are all enclosed tanks.
The concrete structure at the top of the Indian Creek trail was for diversion into the industrial water power supply for all the industry along the railroad tracks. This was never part of the city’s public water supply.
nels
Does the gpm vary? By season, or…?
Arthur
The most recent city water usage numbers I have are from 1999: 2.2 cfs average use, 4.1 cfs summer use. I know the new pipeline system allows easier tracking of flow, so I’ll try to get some more recent numbers.
Arthur
I requested more recent numbers from the city. They won’t have solid data from their new flow meter until next year, but they have data from adding up water meters:
1999: average daily use 1.75 cfs, max daily 3.5 cfs.
2014: average daily use 2.5 cfs, max daily 6.45 cfs
Since meters are read monthly I assume "max daily" is the average daily use for the highest month.
The city has grown in population and also annexed land previously not on city water, so water usage per person is actually down.
Jeffrey Bryant
Here is a pretty good description of the Hood River water system planned in 1910:
http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1910-03-03/ed-1/seq-1/
Jeffrey W Bryant
Here is a short article about the small streams in town.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn97071110/1920-05-20/ed-1/seq-3/