Historic Hood River
Final Exam
12-19-2011
Notes
It’s time for final exams at school, so I guess it’s time for an HHR exam. Don’t worry. This one is open book, and you’re welcome to copy from your neighbors.
This image is captioned, “Taken from Depot, 1890’s.” After 7 months of studying Hood River history you all know that’s wrong. Your final exam is a single essay question: Provide a description for this image, including whatever you can about the time period and what we’re looking at. There are at least 6 previous HHR images with clues to help you out.
spinsur
wow, wish we still had the steam engine ’round here! I’d have to add about thirty years to that photo, concrete State Street bridge, and the old highway loops are at least cut in to the hillsides in the background. old train station. 1907 railroad bridge. next…?
Jim
This must be a picture "Ëœof’ the depot, taken "Ëœfrom’ the Hood River Hotel, and the building on the right must be the livery building featured in the first post on Historic Hood River.
Jim
correction, should read … ‘from’ the Mt. Hood Hotel …
l.e.
Definitely the roof line of the very first photo you posted Arthur. The Livery Building.
The coloring looks like an 1870’s photo.
nels
Is that white water showing underneath the bridge? And there appears to be the strawberry farm to the east that you showed earlier.
l.e.
Is the other tall building in the background, the industrial building?
Jim
This almost looks like a reverse angle shot of your 5-25-11 post. In those notes you mention "the beautiful 1920 bridge over the Hood River"? which is in this photo as well. In Wikipedia this bridge is listed on the Historic Columbia River Highway entry as built in 1918, so my best guess as to the time period is post 1918.
Jim Gray
My guess would be that the photo is taken from Gerdes Hotel not the Mt Hood Hotel, is that the older Depot, it looks like it has a covered open area. Big spark arrestor on the steam engine and a engine repair shop?
Jim
Considering the distance to the tracks, it seems the Gerdes Hotel would be a more likely vantage point. Also, on further inspection, I don’t think the building on the left is either the new or old depot. The roof details in this image do not match those of the new depot and for that building to be the old depot this photo would have been taken prior to 1911 when the original depot was torn down. Considering that the Hood River Bridge built in 1918 is in the photo, the buildings near the tracks must be just east of the current depot.
In the 3-9-11 post, Bill noted in the comments that the livery building was gone by 1946, if this is true, the time period for this image can be narrowed to between 1918 and 1946.
l.e.
My guess is that, with the large portion of what I assume is the Koberg farm in the background, the photo predates the 1937 backwater from Bonneville Dam.
And, I think the photo must be taken from the Mt. Hood Hotel.
Jim Gray
The current Depot was built in 1918 and no doubt has gone thru a few remodels, agree with I.e. on the farm but sticking by Gerdes Hotel as the location of the camera or maybe a power pole by the Gerdes Hotel as the part of the false front is show
ing.
Arthur
Wow, great work everyone. I had to dig through some extra resources to resolve some of the questions raised. I believe the two false front buildings are the Wm. Rand Livery on 1st Street and the Fashion Garage at Oak and Front. If you draw a line on the 1928 Sanborn map through the NW corner of the Rand Livery and the NE corner of the Fashion Garage, it goes right through the cupola of the Mt. Hood Hotel, where I suspect the camera was perched. The year is between 1920 and 1929.
1) The confusion over the train station is because there were two passenger stations back then. This was the Mt. Hood RR station, not the OWRR&N station. Sanborn map confirms its location on the Mt. Hood RR spur, along with the visible engine house and car barn.
2) The bridge is variously reported as built in 1918, 1919, and 1920. The contemporaneous "Engineering and Contracting" magazine from October 1921 reports it as being completed "last year". Maybe we can get Esther to check the HRN archives to verify this.
3) The Fashion Garage burned in a spectacular fire in 1929. I have a photo queued up in a few weeks which shows it being reduced to ash. I suppose I should have held off on this quiz until after I shared that photo with you. Very unfair.
4) The Sanborn map verifies the Rand Livery building had that odd shaped annex on the back, and the multi-pitch roof and facade match our pictures.
5) You can also line up the livery and garage from the Gerdes Hotel, but it was considerably lower than the Rand Livery and the Mt. Hood Hotel cupola would block the view. Good solution to the "depot" problem, but I think it’s a different depot.
I’ll sign you all up if "History Detectives" comes to town.
Charlott
I was never aware that Koberg had any land on this side of that hill. His was the bottomland down there in the area of Koberg beach, down below the old dump.
You also see the house, barn and other things there on Button Hill.
Esther Smith
Re: date of construction for the (first) concrete bridge over the Hood River: It was started and completed in 1918.
I’ll have to look up exact dates, but our Yesteryears entry for March 19, 2008, included this excerpt from the 1918 paper: "Work was started last week on the new concrete bridge to be built over the Hood river just east of town by the state and county jointly. A.L. foster is the engineer in charge and he started work Thursday with a gang of men which will be augmented as the work gets under way. It will be of concrete, including three 95-foot spans and approaches. The width of the roadway will be 22 feet and the bridge will be both substantial and artistic."
From the Sept. 24, 2008 Yesteryears (1918 entry): "The concrete was poured into the remaining two arches of the Columbia Highway state bridge, being built across Hood River, Monday and Tuesday. This completes the last of the difficult work in the construction of the bridge, according to A.L. Foster, superintendent of construction. It should be completed about November 1, he says. The bridge, which is of Roman arch construction, has four main piers and eight columns. It is 22 feet above the Mount Hood Railroad track and 450 feet long."
From the Nov. 26, 2008 Yesteryears (1918 entry): "The new concrete bridge opened for traffic at 3 o’clock Monday afternoon, the automobile of A.W. Peters, the East side orchardist, being the first to pass over the new structure. The auto was stopped by C.C. Carter, the engineer in charge of the bridge work for the state, and a picture of the machine taken, with a News representative standing on the running board."
Arthur
Esther, thanks for resolving the discrepancy in dates. It’s an impressive engineering feat to complete such a large bridge in 8 months. I’ll be sure to refer to this as the 1918 bridge from now on.
Esther Smith
Glad to help. In case you want to get more exact about the dates, I just had an opportunity to look them up: The first-reference (project start date) occurred March 14, 1918 (reported in the March 20 paper); the second was Sept. 23-24, 1918 (reported in the Sept. 25 paper); and the third, opening to traffic, occurred Nov. 25, 1918 (reported in the Nov. 27 paper).
Probably more than you wanted/needed to know, but I feel better now!
Jim
Arthur, although implied above, I think for historical purposes the date range this image could have been captured should be amended to 1918-1929.
Kenn
The date is after 1900, the RR fill is very recent and the 1882 bridge has been removed. The date on the bridge portal could be easily checked, I believe it is 1907, and it will date the photo. I have pictures of the two bridges side by side but neglected to date the photos.