Historic Hood River
Coe House
10-21-2014
Notes
According to notes on the back this is the original Coe house, built by Nathaniel and Mary Coe in 1854 or 1855. The house was replaced with another by 1903, but Coe Spring is still around. The current address is 1022 State Street, though the Coe’s original donation land claim included most of downtown Hood River.
l.e.
Any idea of the date for this photo?
One of your first HHR photos was this one of the Coe House and strawberry fields.
Do you think old house was torn down and the new one built in the same spot?
I grumble about packing my groceries in from the car to the house. The Coe family had quite a walk to and from the river, on top of the boat travel to the grocery store.
l.e.
Ooops. Forgot the link for the earlier HHR Coe house, which says was built in 1875
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=29
Maybe they were separate homes? One was Henry’s and this one was his parents?
Arthur
This was Nathaniel and Mary Coe’s house. Henry Coe was their son. His home was built a little to the south a few years later.
nels
Is that a vine to the right of the door that appears to be climbing up into the tree? House doesn’t look like much by later standards, but quite a large house if compared to the many other homes we have seen from that era. With two chimneys for opposite ends of the house. With milled and painted exterior.
Jill
Love the patchwork effect of the shake/shingle roof. The wind, perhaps?
nels
There are two rope-like things coming from the left of the picture and up into the oak tree. Too early for electricity. Any ideas?
Arthur
I think that’s a wisteria starting to the right of the doorway and going into the oak tree. The roof has been repaired with a bunch of newer larger shakes amongst the old rotting shakes.
l.e.
I once posted the link to this photo of the Coe home.
http://oregondigital.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/cgdc&CISOPTR=5951&CISOBOX=1&REC=2
Arthur said, because of the telephone pole, he was skeptical the photo was taken 1854.
Nels mentioning those wires makes me wonder if they are coming from the telephone pole.
The white building across the river shows up in both photos.
Jeffrey Bryant
The Hood River Glacier, May 5, 1899
The old Coe mansion has lately been remodeled, painted, whitewashed and added to, and old-timers who knew it in its palmiest days say it never looked better. This house was built in 1853.
Jeffrey Bryant
An upcoming episode of "Who Do You Think You Are" on TLC will be on Tony Goldwyn, a descendant of Nathaniel Coe. Based on an e-mail from Ancestry.com I believe the episode will focus on the Coe family, founders of Hood River.
L.E.
From the September 18, 1852 Columbian:
"Post Offices–For the information of all who may desire the establishment of post offices in their vicinity, we would state that the necessary steps to be taken are these select and recommend, to the Postmaster General, proper persons to become postmasters—transmitting such recommendations to the Postal Agent (Mr. N. Coe), at Portland, who will promptly forward the same to the Department with his own recommendation. N. Coe, who is at present on a visit to the Sound, informs us that he has no authority to establish post offices or appoint post masters, but will take an interest with the Department in their establishment and appointment whenever the people interested move in the matter. He informs us that he has already recommended the establishment of a mail route down the Sound."
L.E.
A 1903 HR Glacier article about the Coe family.
http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1903-04-02/ed-1/seq-3/
Jeffrey W Bryant
A 1913 HR Glacier article says the first burying ground was located on a corner of Paradise Farm, which is at the west end of State Street. Nathaniel Coe must have originally been buried there in 1868 and later was moved to the Catholic Cemetery.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn97071110/1913-11-27/ed-1/seq-1/