Historic Hood River
Pano Detail: White Salmon
12-15-2020
Notes
Here’s a fine detail from yesterday’s panoramic view of the entire Hood River White Salmon area. I’m hoping some of you White Salmon historians can start identifying the buildings we see. Any idea what the small teepee like structures in the orchard might be?
L.E.
I have contacted Ralph Brown who has done extensive research on the history of this area and devoted his work to the Facebook page The Early Years of White Salmon and Surrounding Areas.
Are the teepee like structures shocks of hay?
L.E.
I am going to guess that we are looking west toward White Salmon. Jewett St. is running east/west. I suspect the photo predates 1906. The building closest to us is the Bethel Congregational Church built 1879. The house behind it is the Cameron home, an early family to settle the area. I think the large building in the background is the Wolford Store on Main St. Main St. runs north/south. Across from the Wolford Store is the Ward home.
ArthurB
Yes, I should have explained we’re looking due west in this view. You’ll see proof this is pre-1906 in tomorrow’s view.
kmb
When you zoom into the panoramic view from yesterday in the area shown in today’s detail photo, the details are very fuzzy at best. My assumption is this is due to the website/software limitation on the number of pixels across the width of the pano view from yesterday. Too bad you don’t have a way of attaching the original scanned photo file at full resolution to allow the HHR viewers to download and view on their computers. Or possibly have some kind of companion website or social media platform page where files can be swapped. Just a suggestion.
Ralph Brown
The upper right corner building is the home of Lewis Albertine McClintock. Not sure of the date it was built. It survived the fire of 1912, however the Wolfard Building to the south, did not. This building was built 1891 by Rudolph Lauterbach and the store was run by George Thomas until 1903 when Wolfard ran it until 1907 when he moved into his brick building at the east end of Jewett Street. The big house with the 3 windows is the Ward house built 1900 and is presently the site of the Elks Lodge. It does not appear that the Groshong Blacksmith shop on Maine has been built yet, which will predate this picture to 1904. The Congregational Church and the Cameron Farm is definitely identified, and the Barn upper left, is visible in a 1906 picture I have identified. The big building on the south side of Jewett appears to be the Bancroft building (east of present day Everybody’s Brewing), and the small building on the North side is possibly the Enterprise building before it burned. The Colburn Hotel and the Alpha Opera House not built yet. They were built 1906. The drone that took this picture is at a completely different spot than other drones and is taking pictures prior to any other drone pictures of the White Salmon Area. Other blown up segments of the pano picture will be very interesting to look at, but I am going to date this picture as late1905, as the Bancroft building was added onto after July 1905. The above analysis is done after consulting Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 10 of my Early Day Series of White Salmon, as can be viewed on the Face Book Group "The Early Years of White Salmon and Surrounding Areas"
ArthurB
Kmb, you’ve identified some of the limits of a 10 year old website format. I’d like to rework the site with higher resolution options and social media integration, but it’s a major project to do that while making sure all the existing content is preserved. Some day when I have plenty of time…
ArthurB
Thanks for the great details, Ralph. We’ll be looking down towards Bingen Thursday. Let me know if there’s anything I should focus on.
Ralph Brown
If possible, I would like to see the Joslyn house, and Warners Landing and of course the building in Bingen. It has to be the Maple Hotel, but somehow it does not look right. But then again, it took me quite a bit of research and time to zero in on the Bancroft building in WS. This is an earlier drone picture than any I have access to, so being able to stare and compare and process takes some concentration. And of Course the Jewett Barn and resort area, and the brickyard would be great to zero in on.
L.E.
The road through White Salmon is made up of Jewett St. and Main St. At the time of this photo, it was often called "the road to Camas Prairie".
The road wasn’t a good one, but north of White Salmon there was land for sale and when passengers disembarked from the steam boats, that is where they were headed looking for farm ground.
Today, White Salmon is the booming area and Camas Prairie (Glenwood) is out in the boonies.
In the early 1850’s, Camas Prairie was the route to the Yakima Valley and Fort Simcoe, until a road was built from The Dalles.