Historic Hood River
Waukoma Hotel
7-5-2017
Notes
We haven’t seen a view of this familiar downtown building for a while. I believe this is from the late 1920’s, when it was operating as the Waukoma Hotel (with a “k”). You can see the Pheasant Cafe and a handy scale with the admonition “Your weight indicates your health.” And if you look closely below the “Hotel” sign there is that symbol which looks like an air raid shelter from the 1950s. We saw it on an Oak Street building of the same era, so it must have has some local meaning.
We’ve seen this building in its earlier incarnation as the Hotel Oregon. I see from newspaper accounts it was remodeled in 1929. This must be from before the remodel, as it looks a little rough.
charlott
Though somewhat in disrepair you can still see where the garden terrace was. I bet in that day it was lovely to look down towards the Columbia and across to Underwood Mountain, without the shoreline beings totally taken over by modernization….
It is too bad they (don’t know who they might be) can’t do something with the upper floors of that grand old building..
Arthur
I recently got a tour of the upper floors by the owner. The roof garden does have very nice views. I took a full set of photos for our archives. We have several images in our collection which were taken from that vantage point.
L.E.
Looks kind of run down, doesn’t it? This was before the depression.
I wonder if the Columbia River Highway, the automobile and the Columbia Gorge Hotel affected business in the downtown area?
Stever
Interesting to see the " back in " parking … I wonder what the poster in the window is promoting ? I’m told my great grand mother used to work at the cafe – prior to opening and operating the Mt Hood Tavern – I’ve always wondered where it was in HR town … now I know …. Big Thanks !
Jeffrey Bryant
The first passenger elevator in Hood River was installed in the Hotel Waukoma in 1927, when remodeling of the hotel was done.
https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1927-07-28/ed-1/seq-1/