Historic Hood River
“Don’t Wait Until the Day Before Christmas…”
12-23-2025
Notes
While the W. F. Laraway Jewelry store has been gone for almost a hundred years, there are still plenty of shops downtown for your last minute gift needs. This glass lantern slide would have been displayed while you waited in one of Hood River’s theaters for the start of the feature film.
Thorn
I wonder what the theater charged businesses to use this flexible bit of holiday advertising.
I also have a question for the long time locals of Hood River…Over the last 50 years I recall 4-5 white Christmas’s in Portland. How often do you have a a white Christmas in Hood River?
L. E.
My dad never went shopping. But, on Christmas Eve, he would come into the house after feeding the cows, with a nicely wrapped Christmas gift for my mom that he had bought at Farrell and Eddy, the long time clothing store in Camas.
He definitely waited until the last minute, but for me, it was exciting because it was out of the ordinary and my mom had taken care of my gifts which were waiting under the tree.
Will
Arthur – Is that one of Laraway’s Iowa photos in the advertisement?
Arthur Babitz
I think these glass lantern slides were stock images delivered to theaters. In all of the slides “W. F. Laraway” is written in a different hand or font from the rest of the slide.