Historic Hood River
Packing House and Cold Storage
9-9-2014
Notes
Here’s a good view of the packing house and cold storage facility at the Liberty Home Orchard. The Mt. Hood Railroad has brought a refrigerator car right up the the packing house on a spur line. We’ll see inside a packing house tomorrow.
Category: default
Tags: agriculture, apples, Liberty Home Orchard, Mason, Pine Grove, railroad, train
Tags: agriculture, apples, Liberty Home Orchard, Mason, Pine Grove, railroad, train
charlott
Gives me a good chance to do a little exploring. I am quite certain this building still exists, though maybe in a little altered form adjacent to Walter Wells & Sons packing house on Mason Road. Walter Wells was my great-uncle. The Mt. Hood main line went behind this building, as it does today. Apparently they had a spur off to the packing house. More later, as I am off soon to have an actual look.
Buzz
Must be a door hid behind the railcar that is used to move freight from packing house to the railcar.
Arlen Sheldrake
Yes, doors on both sides…..the later versions were iced from the top at both ends…not sure how they iced this one. Father John L. worked for a while icing cars at the "downtown" packing plant….sliding blocks of ice down ramps.
nels
…and the proverbial dog! Hood River hasn’t changed much in that respect.
Kate
In researching my Cemetery Tales, I found that the Wells family came to the Hood River Valley by train from Chicago in 1884 with the Graham and Lafleur families.
Judy
Nels, when you look at the pictures on display at the museum, especially the early pioneers, you will not be surprised to find that most of them have dogs in them. Don’t you love it!!!
charlott
I proved myself wrong. This is the packing house, yes, but it burned and the present barn was built on it’s sight.
Kate: My Wells family did not come from
Chicago in 1884. My great-grandfather’s brother, Warren came prior to 1891 and my great grandfather brought the family out in April 1891.
Bill Seaton
I think my father worked in the vicinity of this building some of the time back in the 1930’s.
charlott
Bill, he would have worked up on Wells Drive. Wells’ I don’t think owned this parcel of land at that time.
Kate
Charlotte, Were there Wells in the valley before Warren came in 1891?
Charlott
No, not of my family. Warren and his wife Molly were the first ones, but don’t know the exact date they came. But they were well established in Pine Grove prior to 1891.
Charlott
Warren and Molly were married in Illinois in 1885 and it must have been soon after that they came to Hood River.