Historic Hood River
Happy Anniversary, Historic Hood River!
Notes
Hard to believe, but it was 15 years ago today this first Historic Hood River post was greeted by an expectant world. It has since been joined by 3,827 other posts. For 15 years we’ve been crowdsourcing local history. You’ve contributed 26,491 comments helping us make sense of our historic vignettes.
The image which drew the most comments (35) was this view of Dr. William Lysander Adams “Paradise Farms.” Until today I thought today’s image was a badly faded print from the same negative, but with a little Photoshop work it turns out this is a different negative likely from the same session. In this view the woman who was riding side saddle has climbed down and is standing in the yard.
I implore you to read the comments and follow some of the associated links in the linked posts to learn a little more about Dr. Addams, one of the most colorful people in Hood River history. I would start with this Oregon Encyclopedia entry to learn the basics of his trip on the Oregon Trail with 250 books, and his role as the first playwright and one of the earliest publishers in the territory, but you’ll have to read through the comments to learn about him shooting his pistol into the air while he practiced his abolitionist speeches on his pet sturgeon, or about how said sturgeon, fed on a diet of liver and fresh meat, eventually outgrew his pond and needed to be moved to deeper quarters to avoid sunburn. A footnote to history is that Dr. Adams’ pet fish outlived him by several years.
Dale Nicol
Arthur, thank you for all of the hard work it takes to scan, clean up, make sense of and provide additional detail you have learned about the photo’s.
It’s amazing how far this site has come is just a few years.
L.E.
The last post on the 2013 photo was posted in 2024. It says the water fountain is still there.
Jeffrey Bryant
When Dr. Adams died in 1906, my 2nd great grandfather, Cyrus Vaughan, was one of the pallbearers.
https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1906-05-03/ed-1/seq-4/
The Vaughan family came from Knox County, Illinois to Oregon in 1852. Dr. Adams and the Vaughan family lived near each other in Illinois and in Oregon.
Nels
Now that a decent amount of time has passed can you share a little about our informal historian Charlotte.
Arthur Babitz
Nels, when Charlott passed I included a link to a bio provided by her daughter in this post: https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org/charlott-wells-jones/
starboard
Happy 15 Arthur! Well done and thanks for all you do!
L.E.
Charlott was great because she not only loved history but her family history went back to early area settlements. From Maryhill/Columbus to Biggs to Underwood, to Pine Grove/Odell she had a story to tell. She had stories about her husband’s high school escapades and it was fun to read the bantering back and forth by Charlott and the other oldies at this site who grew up in the Hood River area and graduated from the “city” high school and the “country” high school.