Historic Hood River
Moving Day, 1923
Notes
Another Monday mystery: We know the who, when, and where, but the “what” is a little muddy. The photo was taken in 1923 by the skilled photographer Fred Donnerberg. The truck was driven by Donald Mowers, though he seems to be hiding from the camera at this moment. The location is the industrial triangle bounded by the train tracks, Front Street, and State Street (just west of the current Springhouse Cellars building). You can see the cupola of the Mt. Hood Hotel sticking up behind the trees, and I believe that’s the back of our livery just above the cab. But what exactly is going on?
The mass of gears, pipes, pistons and tanks may be some sort of steam engine. Is it going into the building or coming out? What was it used for? What industry was housed in this large building? If anyone can fill in some of the blanks, please share.
Jim Gray
Logging was going strong then, maybe a donkey engine for hauling logs in. Could of come in on the RR and was heading to a logging site.
Dan
Jim, that’s my best guess as well.
Arthur
A little research on steam engines for logging vs steam engines for running a factory: The "donkey" for logging would operate a winch, which means it needed to have a mechanism for stopping and reversing. A factory operation would instead have a large flywheel for a belt to drive the factory equipment continuously. Can’t be sure which we have here, but I see a large control lever, with a smaller one next to it, as well as a valve to shut off steam flow.
Arthur
We have a definitive ID of the building from 1916 and 1928 insurance maps. It was a garage and stable (originally Fashion Livery and Dray Co.), with the basement level used for storage, the 1st (middle) level a livery, and the 2nd (top) level a garage with frontage on Front Street. Perhaps the steam engine was stored in this building, but it probably wasn’t used at this location.
Julie S
The hood on the truck says Transfer and Livery Co. Hood River,OR.
Here is a link to a picture of the Hood River glacier (newspaper), dated Thursday, July 13, 1916. Lower left corner shows an ad for Transfer and Livery Co, phone 4111 (notice the same number on the side of the truck) advertising the best slab wood for sale in or out of the city. I think that might mean that this apparatus is for use in a lumber mill?
http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1916-07-13/ed-1/seq-5.pdf
J.E. Sheppard
Looks to me like a tripple-drum donkey engine–yarding drum, haul back drum and rigging straw line drum, but it is more compact than ones I have seen–a rather small unit.