Historic Hood River
“The Underground” Above Ground
Notes
This is the far west end of the Union Building (Originally Davidson Fruit Company, then Apple Growers Association, then Diamond Fruit) alongside the UP Railroad tracks in Hood River. While most of this western section of the the Union Building is now gone, the basement still exists as “The Underground Music Station“. When the Port of Hood River was attempting to convert this space into usable industrial sites they removed most of the building, leaving the floor slab and support pillars. This actually gives us a good view of how all the parts of the Union Building were built: very strong steel reinforced concrete floor slabs are supported by pillars, with the external brick walls providing insulation. The walls included air spaces and thick sheets of cork, but did nothing to hold the building together.
The Union Building provided cold storage for the nearby fruit packing houses. You can see how an enclosed conveyor belt would bring crates of fruit from the packing house which is now operating as the Full Sail Brewery into the top floor of the Union Building. There were internal conveyors running the entire length of the Union Building, and two spiral ramps which allowed the crates to be deposited on one of the lower floors where they could stay for months until they needed to be loaded onto rail cars for shipment nationwide.
JEC
The short brick building and the enclosed conveyor in this picture actually belonged to the cannery. Empty cans were delivered (on the pallets in the foreground), stored, and sent by a special conveyor through the overpass to the cannery. The level of Industrial street was raised after the Port took over the properties.
Arthur Babitz
Thanks, JEC, I’ll change the notes and pass along to the building owner. He was under the impression fruit arrived through that conveyor.
Kyle
Full Sail (my employer) now operates out of the entire white building in the background, and we too have tall stacks (usually about 34 high) of pallets stored outside most of the year. If I have my bearings right, the part of the large building that the conveyor hits in this photo is now the boiler room. It also passes through the spot that now houses a large above-ground tank used to store spent yeast and grain, which gets trucked away for use in agriculture.
Kyle
Or…. it’s farther east than I thought, and the conveyor hits what is now the warehouse, passing through tanks used to pre-treat wastewater.