Historic Hood River
Meet Walter Wells
6-27-2023
Notes
What a wonderful portrait of Walter Wells. One of his relatives visited the museum last week to pore through the Hood River News archives and found this gem. I’ll leave it to the family to provide the bio. You can see the Rialto theater marquee in the background featuring the movie “In Like Flint,” a 1967 parody of the spy movie. You can also see the Paris Fair building and the Mobil gas station.
Category: Downtown Hood River
Tags: 1960s, gas station, Oak Street, Paris Fair, Rialto Theater, Wells
Tags: 1960s, gas station, Oak Street, Paris Fair, Rialto Theater, Wells
L.E.
Well, since Charlott is not here to explain this, I have to ask…Who is Walter Wells?
Is he Charlott’s cousin?
kmb
I am going to guess this is Charles “Walter” Wells, born 27 June 1890 in Rock Island, Ill, died 10 Dec 1981 in Hood River. He was a younger brother of Charlott’s grandfather, Perry E Wells, so I guess that would make him her great uncle. Charles “Walter” Wells had a son, Walter Gowlan Wells, born 9 Sep 1917 in Hood River, died 17 Mar 2015 in Pine Grove, but I think he would have been too young to be the man in the picture. Jeffrey Bryant should be able to provide the authoritative answer to this.
Will
The Quiller Memorandum (screenplay by Harold Pinter) was also based on a series of English novels apparently so would pair well with In Like Flint (sequel to Our Man Flint). Putting it in my queue now.
Will
Both Mobil and Esso were offspring of J.D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil (“S-O”).
Jeffrey Bryant
Walter Wells was my step-grandfather. In addition to being a fruit farmer in the Pine Grove area, he was a founder of the Hood River Electric Co-Op, head of the Hood River County Democrat Party, builder of many buildings in the Pine Grove area, head of Walter Wells and Sons fruit company, and leader in the Pine Grove Grange.
Jeffrey Bryant
More pictures and information on Walter Wells can be found at: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/27DT-2YS
L.E.
Thanks Jeffrey. That is quite the story about him driving off the road in a snowstorm, over a 100′ embankment and landing on the Mount Hood railroad track and pinned there for 13 hours.