Historic Hood River
Ella May’s Shack
2-20-2020
Notes
I believe Ella May Davidson’s “shack” was just east of the 2nd Street Stairs (“Gil’s Stairs”) just below Hazel Street. If I have my chronology right she later moved to a house just west of the stairs off Serpentine.
Kyle
Compare/contrast with the houses currently being built on that slope…
nels
Why would one build on a rock pile/cliff? Step off the front porch and take a tumble. At least no lawn to take care of. Should be able to find the sight of that house by the large boulder there.
ArthurB
I have tried to figure out if that boulder is still there but have been unsuccessful. I believe it may have been split up and moved to the side to prepare a home site.
andyb
So if anyone sees Arthur snooping around in their yard, he's just looking for historical boulders and the like.
ArthurB
Very funny, Andy. What you actually would have seen is me standing on the 2nd Street Stairs taking pictures of boulders which I then tried to compare with photos of Ella May's boulder (we have quite a few).
j nels
Looking for big boulders made me very aware today as I went around town, especially far west side. Those big boulders were put there by either one of the Missoulla floods (there were like 55 at least), or out-wash from Mt. Hood blowing. (More out-wash is plastered into the wall across the river just west of the river and very visible if you know to look.)
I always wondered, when it crossed the river, did it stay on top of the water with full speed ahead or did it block the flow temporarily and then hit the other side.
The Heights area has wonderful soil on top of pebble sized rocks, seen in the former quarry that is now the city/county “hole in the ground” just south of the Mormon Church. They hauled pebble rock out of there to gravel the many roads around town. But a few blocks west and you begin to see clay soil and boulders of all sizes and rounded by tumbling, showing the main flow of Mt. Hood's blowup. And as you leave town on I-84 just past the River patrol building, there is a high clay road-cut showing burnt cinder like rocks embedded in the clay soil, some the clay also appearing burned. What a place to live in. And what about the Indians who must have been living around the Heights forests and streams. Anyone remember listening to the
train like noise coming from the Hood River as large boulders were tumbled down during flood stages? If any of this information is wrong please correct me.
L.E.
A photo of maybe Ella May's grandpa slowly climbing the stairs. One of my favorites.
http://historichoodriver.com/index.php?showimage=254
Gladys
There was a big mud flow from Hood that came through where H. R. is now. My cousin is a geologist and was working in this area for a few years and spent quite a bit of time with him. I don't whether you can see it now or not, but there at the stop of the east end of State Street and Oak Street he pointed out that layer along the hillside to me, as the flow, which went zipping across the river and way up the other side. He said he found way up the river in Washington the rocks and boulders that went racing across from Hood.
Judy
Talk to a local, Dennis Bokovoy, about the Missoula Flood. He is an expert.