Historic Hood River
Happy Alva Day Day
Notes
I’m reminded November 15th was Alva Day’s birthday, so make sure you do something special this Alva Day Day Weekend. Here’s one of his 2500+ images showing his team dragging a power pole to bring electricity to another corner of the Hood River valley. He’s not in the photo, presumably because he is behind the camera. He had a good eye for composing an industrial image like this with a little touch of scenic beauty.
For many years Alva Day was the face of Pacific Power in Hood River, selling electric appliances and overseeing the effort to bring electricity to the entire valley.  Here’s an image showing how they actually erected the pole. This image shows them loading a pole at their downtown yard.
That’s a Model T which has been converted to a pickup, maybe 1918 or so?
L. E.
Thank you Alva Day for taking a photo of Mt Adams from the beautiful productive fields and orchards of Hood River country.
Tomorrow, I will honor the power poles around my area, in honor of Alva Day.
Thorn
So today is Alva Day Eve?
Truly a worthy person in Oregon’s history–such a fascination and penchant for science, leaving an even greater legacy of what he loved. A life paralleled by possibly the greatest technological advancements in history–from lightbulb to atomic bomb.
Here’s a great pic of the man himself: https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/20130925084117_scan-120731-0100.jpg
And a fantastic article about his life and contributions from the Wy’East blog:
https://wyeastblog.org/tag/hood-river-history/
Arthur Babitz
OK, guess I deserved that. Perhaps seeing beauty in infrastructure was more common a hundred years ago than it is today.
nels
On that note Arthur, I look at the European architecture that is so
ornate and amazing and wonder if the USA will have any kind of architectural beauty beyond the slick glass design of the past 30 years. But even more, all that awe inspiring European building
was done without any modern day mechanation.