Historic Hood River

Notes

I love to show you the wonderful detail in some of our images, but it’s always a tradeoff between how far to zoom on and how much to show.  This image of Oak Street is nice and sharp so let’s zoom in a but to see what it tells us.

We can date it to a narrow range.  The Fashion Garage at the end of Oak Street burned in 1929, and there is at least one Model A Ford on the street.  Since the Model A debuted in late 1927,  “circa 1928” is fair date.

By this date Hood River has completed the pivot from facing the train depot to facing the Columbia River Highway, with all sorts of visitor services greeting the traffic.  On the left you can see the gas pumps at Twin Peaks Auto (now Bette’s).  The sign stretched across Oak Street announcing “GARAGE” would let visitors know they had entered the business district.  Continuing on the north side of the street we see the Rialto Theater, Kelly Hardware, a bakery, Pacific Power & Light, and a drug store.  The Cascadian/Liberty Theater seems closed, as its marquee advertises the Rialto, “Open every mat and eve”.  There’s the J.C. Penney Co. store, Keir Drug, and the Mt. Hood Hotel.  A banner stretched across the road announces “Baseball Sunday 2”.

The signs on the south side of the street aren’t as easy to read, but there’s a music and radio store (not sure if it’s Corson the Music Man at this date), the Paris Fair, a restaurant and drug store, and then a bunch of overlapping projecting signs I can’t read.

And of course, you can’t miss the White Rose Bread truck heading east!

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