Historic Hood River
Laying Sidewalks
3-17-2017
Notes
It’s amazing how many big projects were underway at roughly the same time in Hood River in the 1910s. From this letter you can see the city was laying concrete sidewalks in 1913. They started paving the streets soon after, all while installing a new water system and working on an electric plant.
That concrete apparatus in the masthead is impressive. You can bet it made lots of noise and bore the risk of fatal injury to its operator and passers by.
L.E.
I see in the advertisement, "Chicago Sewer Trench Machine". Last summer we stayed in a Chicago vacation rental, which was an older building, with our unit called the Garden Apartment. The history behind these Garden Apartments was fascinating From the street and sidewalk, you step down into your living quarters. There is a pump system to pump the sewage up to the street level sewer pipes. At one time, the apartment was at street level. Sewer pipes were laid on top of the street, then covered, and then the street level was raised four or five feet. Chicago, on the flat levels of Lake Michigan, has always had a sewage flow problem.
Such a difference from Hood River, where you fill in gullies, to make the streets and sidewalks more level.
Arlen Sheldrake
the days of beautiful stationery…and signed by the pres no less.