Historic Hood River
George Crowell Store
Notes
I haven’t shown this interior view of the George Crowell store before. It is quite similar to this 1901 view. It’s worth rereading the notes associated with that image because the George Crowell Store was such an important part of Hood River life in the era. I especially like the accounts of the political debates.
Today’s view has one major difference from the 1901 view: the store has electric lights instead of gas lamps. I am still not 100% confident in the history of electricity in Hood River. We know there were at least three hydroelectric projects at Powerdale, starting in 1903-1904, but I don’t know how these projects related to the earliest source I can find: in December 1900, the Hood River Electric Light Company received permission from the city to erect poles and string wires. According to this story they delivered the first light downtown at 8:43 PM on June 8th, 1901. I am unclear how this relates to the 1903 Powerdale project which included Horatio Davidson, or where their hydroelectric power plant was located.
Tags: 1900s, 2nd Street, Crowell, electricity, George Crowell Store, Oak Street
Harold
How many burns resulted from that stove placement?
nels
Whom3 ever built the fire every morning certainly had a challenge getting that stove to start drawing. Which must have meant lots of newspaper and some smoke in the face before it began to draw over that long run of horizontal pipe.
Must be a winter photo as the old man is sitting quite close to the wood stove, probably warming his arthritic joints.
L.E.
Did the stove pipe hook into this chimney? http://historichoodriver.com/index.php?showimage=19
Alan Winston
Nice demonstration of flash powder photography.
nels
So that's what that is on the right!
Bhuk
Looks like the guy by the stove is holding a kitten
ArthurB
Good catch Alan. I was trying to explain that flash as lens flare or a light leak, but of course flash powder would do that.
Alan Winston
The sparks made it pretty much conclusive for flash powder.
I was also admiring how electric lighting was installed between the 1901 picture and this one.