Street scenes illustrate change at 42nd & Killingsworth

April 9, 2024 By in Cully, Memories, Old Photos Tags: , , , 2 Comments

Third in a three-part series

As Portland slowly rebounded from the Great Depression of the early 1930s and interest rekindled in Portland residential real estate, the stage was set for a new era at NE 42nd and Killingsworth. Open lands were available for development, subdivisions were platted with buildable lots ready to go, and new infrastructure was on the way in the form of paved roads and big plans for the new Portland Airport. A small wood-frame general store had been built in the late 1920s at what was then the quiet rural crossroads, and other nearby mom-and-pop stores were opening to meet the needs of surrounding residents.

By 1951, the corner was home to multiple gas stations, a barber shop, a cleaners, an ice cream shop and a café. The small wood frame building on the northeast corner had become the Publix Market, operated by Cliff and Mary Tadakuma. Here’s a look:

1951 Looking Northwest

Looking to the northwest at the intersection of NE 42nd and Killingsworth about 1951. The Publix Market is at the northeast corner, on the right. The Lyle Sumner service station is on the Northwest corner. Note that the intersection is not signaled. Photo courtesy of Joyce Tadakuma Gee.

Before the war, Portland had a thriving population of immigrant and first-generation Japanese families who were integrated into all aspects of civic life. In early 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor and declaration of war, Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from most West Coast cities and relocated to internment camps in remote inland areas of the American West. The federal policy fractured families physically and emotionally, and resulted in significant economic losses for Japanese-Americans who owned businesses and property.

As families were loaded into buses and trains during the “evacuation,” heart-breaking decisions were made about the disposition of lands and businesses. Beginning in the 1930s, the Shiogi family had operated a market known as “Publix Market” at the corner of North Killingsworth and Gay Street in North Portland (the storefront that today houses Milk Glass Market, 2150 N. Killingsworth). When the Shiogis were removed to the Minidoka Internment Camp in Idaho, they “gave” their store to neighbors for safe-keeping.

In the fall of 1945, upon returning after the war, the family attempted to re-open the store but found anti-Japanese sentiment in Portland to be too strong. Younger members of the family—daughter Mary and her husband Cliff Tadakuma—who had endured the internment experience only to be discriminated against at home in Portland, moved to Hawaii for several years in search of a more hospitable environment. Mary found work as a housekeeper. Cliff became a gardener on a large estate.

In 1950, Mary and Cliff Tadakuma—with their young daughter Joyce who had been born at Minidoka—returned to Portland from Hawaii and decided to try again to reopen Publix Market, but this time in a different location farther out Killingsworth, in northeast Portland.

Mary had grown up in Portland, a first generation Japanese-American. Cliff had grown up in Maui and graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in chemical engineering (and where the two had met). While their interests and expertise were not necessarily in running a small grocery store, it was a better option than housekeeping and gardening when they returned to Portland.

The couple leased the old wood frame building at the northeast corner of NE 42nd and Killingsworth. The store was adjacent to a densely populated trailer court established during the booming war years, and the surrounding residential neighborhood was growing as well. With the help of Mary’s parents Lori and Hood Shiogi who had run the market when it was located in North Portland, Mary and Cliff set about re-establishing Publix Market.

Daughter Joyce Tadakuma Gee was six years old at the time and recalls that her family lived in the back of the store. Behind the shelves and retail area were two small bedrooms, a bathroom a living room and a small kitchen. Joyce—who is a long-time Portland resident—attended nearby Whitaker Elementary School, located on Columbia Boulevard. “I remember being so envious of classmates of mine who had ‘real’ homes to live in,” she recalled when interviewed in 2020.

Neighbor Doris Woolley grew up on Jarrett Street just north of Publix Market, and remembered that everyone referred to the store simply as “Cliff and Mary’s.” Doris—who passed away in 2020 at age 92—recalled that all of the residents of the trailer park and neighbors north of Killingsworth were loyal to Cliff and Mary and would only shop at Publix Market, even though there were two other small markets nearby.

“It was a great store and they had pretty much everything you wanted,” Woolley recalled.  “Plus, they would let you run an account. In those days a lot of people would charge their groceries during the week and pay for them once they got their paychecks at the end of each week.”

Asked about her recollections of Cliff and Mary’s Japanese American origins and any tensions during the post-war years, Woolley remembered only that everyone liked Cliff and Mary. “They were very kind to everyone.”

Mary Tadakuma died in 1954. Cliff remarried and moved with daughter Joyce to Hood River, where he ran a grocery market until his death in 1978.

1958 Looking North

This 1958 photo (courtesy of City of Portland Archives, a2005-001-984) looks north on NE 42nd just south of Killingsworth. Publix Market is gone, replaced by the Panarama, a liquidation store. The Chevron service station across 42nd to the west has changed hands since the earlier photo and was being operated by Rod Martin. Behind the Panarama Market was the parking lot and sign for the brand-new Safeway store. The intersection was controlled by stop signs facing NE 42nd Avenue.

The white clapboard market building was built about 1927 and was initially operated as a grocery store by Bill and Jennie Batson. Panrama survived the 1957 opening of Safeway, but by 1961 the building had been demolished and replaced by a parking lot and service station.

Safeway Opens in January 1957

A combination of changes in the grocery business—with tendencies to larger chain stores—and an increasing population and market made the corner a natural for the Safeway store, built on the site of what had been the trailer park and small grocery store in the 1940s-1950s.

The store opened in January 1957 as part of a three-store opening blitz in the Portland area, as described in this full page ad from The Oregonian on January 10 1957.

1964 siting of John Adams High School

Construction of John Adams High School just southeast of Fernhill Park in the mid-1960s caused quite a stir and protest from the neighborhood. More than 200 angry neighbors turned out at a Portland School Board meeting on September 14, 1964 to share their disbelief that the School Board would demolish and relocate more than two dozen homes, three duplexes, a local greenhouse/nursery known as Knapps and a PGE substation to make room for the school.

From The Oregonian, September 3, 1964. The homes and businesses inside the dotted line were demolished or relocated to make room for John Adams High School.

From the Oregon Journal, September 3, 1964. Greenhouses for Knapp’s Nursery on NE Simpson are visible in the photo to the left, which looks north on NE 42nd.

The emotion and sense of loss in the letters and petitions submitted to the school board make for tough reading. Despite this strenuous protest, demolition went ahead, construction followed, and John Adams High School opened in September 1969.

From the Oregon Journal, September 15, 1964

A dozen years later, when high school enrollment dropped in the early 1980s, the building was repurposed as a middle school and operated for another 18 years before being closed in 2000 due to health concerns about mold and radon gas. The building sat empty and was frequently vandalized until being torn down in 2006 leaving the large open space south of the track. Newcomers to the area today might not even know that vacant piece of ground south of the track was once a high school and middle school.

1965 Looking South

This view from 1965 looks south along NE 42nd Avenue. The tall buildings in the background are the relatively new St. Charles Church. The intersection has a traffic signal, and each corner features a different gas station: Texaco, Hancock, Mobil and Chevron. The Hancock building stands about where the Publix Market building once stood. The Safeway sign looms large over the intersection. Photo courtesy Portland City Archives, a2011-013.

Safeway operated in this location until about 1972, when the property was acquired by Portland Community College and the building remodeled to become a workforce training facility. In 2024, a completely new PCC building at the corner is now the Portland Metropolitan Workforce Training Center. And construction is underway just to the east on an affordable housing development managed by Home Forward that will include 84 units.

From open space that once provided wildlife habitat and material needs for Indigenous people; to homestead and farm fields that supplied a growing population of newcomers; to park land, school grounds, green houses, family homes and retail; and today affordable housing, workforce development and some great restaurants; this place has continued to evolve, layer upon layer of history and of life.

From farm fields to city lots – development arrives at 42nd and Killingsworth

March 23, 2024 By in Cully, Neighborhood History, Old Photos, The Plats Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

Detail from a 1908 Portland Railway, Light and Power Map showing the vicinity of 42nd and Killingsworth, in the center of the image. The Jorbade subdivision was platted at the intersection in 1908. The western “County Road” is today’s NE 33rd. The eastern “County Road” is NE 42nd. Rose City Cemetery appears in lower right (note that Cully passes through the cemetery). The cross-hatch lines indicate mile increments distant from downtown. The Irvington Park plat is part of today’s Concordia neighborhood. The Alameda Park Addition had not yet been platted and is shown as open fields.

Continuing from our first installment exploring the layers of history at NE 42nd and Killingsworth…

The early years of the 20th Century brought a sea change to the Portland area: dramatic growth in population and a spike in residential and commercial construction that followed; a steady increase in the area’s rail and river shipping and port activity; extension of an interconnected electrified streetcar system; and arrival of the automobile. The 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition drew national and international attention to Portland, attracted business and new residents, and set Portland on a growth curve that would remake the region.

During those early years, the vicinity of NE 42nd and Killingsworth was still a rural crossroads. Killingsworth (which was gravel) didn’t go farther east: it dead-ended into NE 42nd Avenue, which was known only as “County Road” up until the late 19-teens. Maps show the area much like the 1897 USGS map until the second decade: fields all around and less than 30 buildings—many of them barns—within a one-mile radius of the intersection.

But real estate speculators and some landowners could see the writing on the wall. Streetcar lines were working their way east, and new subdivisions and commercial areas were being planned and built. By 1912, a high volume of residential construction was underway in nearby Alameda, Beaumont and Rose City, all of which had been similar open fields and dirt roads.

Open lands are platted for homes, setting the stage for the area we know today

By 1909, real estate speculators Commodore Perry Jordan and Theodore August Garbade had purchased a portion of the old Isaac and MaryAnn Rennison Donation Land Claim at the intersection of today’s NE 42nd and Killingsworth. The two planned to sell residential building lots from what had been open farm land. Jordan and Garbade called their planned suburb “Jorbade,” and filed this plat with Multnomah County. The western edge of the plat is NE 42nd Avenue. Important to note that Killingsworth wouldn’t go through for at least 10 more years. These lots would be just that–vacant lots–for many more years.

A few years later Jordan and Garbade acquired the lands on the opposite corner and were ready to convert them too from open fields to a subdivision. In 1911 they platted the Killingsworth Avenue Addition, from Killingsworth south beyond Emerson, between NE 37th and NE 42nd.

A bit farther west, local resident and real estate speculator John D. Kennedy was a few steps ahead of Jordan and Garbade. He had bought old homestead lands in 1880 believing that Portland would one day expand east; in 1890 he platted the Kennedy Addition, while this area was still part of its own town: East Portland. Here’s a detailed look at Kennedy and his adjacent nearby lands.

The Stokes Tract followed Jorbade and the Killingsworth Addition in 1920, north of Killingsworth and east of 42nd, establishing the graceful arc of Ainsworth and Simpson Court. This area retained a rural feel: “Live in the country and be independent” reads the advertisement.

Other subdivisions followed including tiny View Park in 1923, on the north side of Killingsworth between 36th and 40th:

Interest in these planned subdivisions was not particularly strong until the late 1930s: their distance from downtown, their presence outside the city limits and about a mile walk from the nearest streetcar line (despite what the advertisement said about being on a 5 cent fare line); their rural nature including gravel roads and surrounding fields and orchards may have made them less attractive, even if the prices were lower. But as Portland continued to expand, and the automobile became more prevalent, would-be homeowners were ready to buy and build.

Classified advertisements for properties adjacent to the intersection report a variety of crops growing at the time: orchards of Bing, Lambert and Royal Anne cherries; English walnuts; Bartlett pears; prunes and plums; apples; rows of strawberries and raspberries.

Often referred to as “truck farms” because the produce was trucked to market (and some of it was sold out of the back of trucks at busy intersections and small markets around town), these surrounding fields produced fruit and vegetables for Portland households. One farm near the corner of what is today’s NE 41st and Holman was owned and run by a Japanese immigrant family, as were others in the area. During WWII, Japanese farming families across the Pacific Northwest were removed from their land and placed in internment camps in southeast Oregon, central California, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

Portland Air Base leads to new roads and new residents

By 1935 air freight and airline passenger traffic had overwhelmed Portland’s first airport—located on Swan Island—and the city spent $300,000 to purchase a 700-acre site adjacent to the Columbia River where today’s Portland International Airport resides. With a grant from the Works Progress Administration, workers drained the former floodplain and dumped more than 4 million cubic yards of sand across the site. The airport opened in 1941. During the hundreds of generations of indigenous presence prior to European contact, these wetlands had been both seasonal home and food source.

Following declaration of war in late 1941, Army Air Base operations at the site were dramatically increased and Portland became a regional magnet, attracting tens of thousands of workers and their families to multiple war-related industries across the Portland area. An immediate demand for housing, combined with a newly-improved road network and the availability of open land in this area so close to the airbase, fueled interest.

A small expression of the interest was a long row of connected cabins dubbed the “tourist cabins” and an adjacent business called the Spur Tavern at the northeast corner of NE Holman and 42nd avenue. Built in 1942 as temporary housing for the great influx of people, the residences and tavern became a landmark of sorts. Read more about the Tourist Cabins and the Spur.

City buys old farms to create Fernhill Park

After voters approved a property tax levy in 1938 to create more parks and playgrounds for a growing Portland, the city set out on a 10-year process of buying the hills and gullies northwest of 42nd and Killingsworth, starting out in 1940 with a 10-acre parcel owned by the Jackson family right in the middle of it all.

Prior to acquisition, several dirt roads criss-crossed the north side of the area, one even ran right up the bottom of the gully at the heart of today’s off-leash area in the northeast corner of the park, pausing at a wide spot that served as a dump and debris field where car bodies and all manner of junk were strewn.

It wasn’t an official dump, but more like a secluded out-of-the-way place where residents from the surrounding area dumped unwanted items. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, when the NE 42nd Avenue connection to Columbia Boulevard was built, some of the dirt fill needed to make the grade change for the overpass was dug out from and supplied by the gully on the east side of the park along today’s NE 41st Avenue.

As the park took shape through the late 1940s and early 1950s, some locals referred to it as Ainsworth Park, a name that appears frequently in real estate advertising of that era. By the early 1950s, most of the open land to the north of the park had been converted to subdivision (the Vanlaeken and Leitritz plats). NE Highland Street was put through the middle of working farmland as the area was transformed into suburbia. By June of 1951 when most of the park buying was done, the city had invested $60,479 total for all of the parcels and had acquired 25.95 acres. Read more about the origin of Fernhill Park.

Aerial photographs = time travel

As a reward for reading this far, and as preface for the next installment, here’s a series of aerial photos that allow us to witness change. Each of these is fascinating, so click in for a detailed view. Observations follow each image. Aerial photos courtesy of the University of Oregon Map and Aerial Photography Library.

In 1936, the unplowed lowlands of today’s Fernhill Park show up just left of center, and the arc of Simpson Court and NE Ainsworth feed into NE 42nd. No viaduct yet over Portland Highway. The arrows indicate locations of three small mom-and-pop groceries. Note that Simpson goes through east-west, across the middle of today’s Fernhill Park.

In 1939, more houses are showing up, and orchards in the center of the photo are maturing.

In 1948, the 42nd Avenue viaduct is in place (not pictured) connecting NE 42nd to the new Portland Airport. Houses continue to replace open fields. The greenhouses at Knapps Nursery appear west of NE 42nd at Simpson. Orchards near NE 37th and Killingsworth are replaced by homes.

In 1951, a trailer park appears at the NE corner of 42nd and Killingsworth in what were once open fields. Significant new home construction is evident north of Killingsworth and west of 42nd. The flat playing field at the south end of Fernhill Park begins to emerge from the former agricultural fields north of Simpson, and west of 42nd. Construction is underway on the new St. Charles Church and school.

In 1961, the trailer park is replaced by a large Safeway store and parking lot at the corner of 42nd and Killingsworth, which opened in 1957. A baseball diamond is clearly visible in the new Fernhill Park. Orchards and open agricultural fields are gone. Simpson still goes through west of Killingsworth. South of Simpson in this area, 26 homes, three duplexes, a PGE power substation, and Knapp’s greenhouses and nursery are soon to be demolished or moved–over the strenuous objection of neighbors–to make way for John Adams High School.

In 1971, John Adams High School is in place, replacing a portion of the open areas of Fernhill Park and most of the homes between Killingsworth and Simpson west of 42nd. Simpson no longer goes through west of 42nd. Acres of parking are available west of the Safeway store at 42nd and Killingsworth.

By 2020, John Adams High School (later known as Whitaker Middle School) was demolished in 2006, but the track remains. Neighborhood street tree canopies are filling out. Safeway is closed and the buildings at the northeast corner of 42nd and Killingsworth are now gone.

Next: The changing retail face of the intersection: from Cliff and Mary’s to Safeway and beyond

Time travel deep dive at NE 42nd and Killingsworth

March 21, 2024 By in Cully, Maps, Neighborhood History Tags: , , , 14 Comments

The intersection of NE 42nd and Killingsworth can feel like it exists on the way to somewhere else. But this crossroads has its own rich history that runs deep.

NE 42nd and Killingsworth, looking northeast. Fall 2023, Google streetview.

It’s worth slowing down time a bit to be able to see and explore the chapters here, which run back through commercial retail and early neighborhood development to wide open fields of berries and orchards, further back through the homestead era and even down slope toward the Columbia River and the slough wetlands that have been known and inhabited by Chinookan people since time immemorial.

This is the first of a three-part exploration to spark your imagination about the layers of history here. In this first installment, we’ll overview the arc of the story. In the second installment, we’ll take an illustrated deep dive into the subdivision years between 1900-1940 when everything was changing for the neighborhoods around the crossroads. Our last installment will explore the changing look of the intersection itself from the 1950s-1980s: gas stations and mom-and-pop groceries, greenhouses, a Safeway store, a trailer park, Adams High School and more.

Today, both NE Killingsworth Street and NE 42nd Avenue are well-used surface streets in the Northeast quadrant of Portland. The traffic-controlled intersection where they cross—poised at the northern edge of the 42nd Avenue / western Cully neighborhood commercial area four miles from the downtown core of the city center—features restaurants, bus stops, a convenience store, direct access to a city park and a brand-new workforce training center operated by Portland Community College. In fall 2025, Home Forward will open 84 units of affordable housing here. This is a busy place.

Early slopes above the Columbia Slough

For millennia the uplands south of the Columbia Slough and Columbia River were covered by a mixed forest of Douglas-fir, hemlock, cedar, alder and maple. Periodic fires, windstorms and outbreaks of insects and disease created openings in the forested canopy. The upland plateau that would eventually become the vicinity of today’s NE 42nd and Killingsworth sloped gently down to meet a vast flood plain, which followed an east-west line at the foot of the slope traced by today’s NE Columbia Boulevard.

Situated between the bottom of the slope and the main channel of the Columbia River just to the north was an interconnected flood plain mosaic of wetlands, ponds, marshes and off-channel waterways. Chinookan seasonal gathering places and dwelling places thrived here for thousands of years.

“Interior of Ceremonial Lodge, Columbia River,” an 1846 oil painting by Paul Keane, who traveled among the Chinook villages of the lower Columbia River.

Explorers, trappers and traders passed by on the Columbia River in the early 1800s intersecting the lives of indigenous people who had known this area since time immemorial. Early white traders introduced successive epidemics of disease, disruption and depredation, and by the 1830s the Chinookan people’s settlements in this area and their ways of life had been dramatically changed. By the late 1840s, Oregon Trail settlers arrived in the area; this immediate vicinity was homesteaded by several families practicing a mix of agriculture, trade and subsistence. Forests were removed, roads were constructed, and homes and barns built.

Surveys gridded the land

With the opening of the Oregon Trail in the mid 1840s and arrival of an increasing number of outsiders seeking land for farms and homesteads, the U.S. Government established a systematic process to map and identify lands that had been mostly cleared of indigenous people that could be granted to newcomers. Survey crews got to work here in the Portland area in 1851 establishing the Willamette Meridian, a systematic grid of townships, ranges and sections across the territory and the Western U.S. that promoted the availability of lands.

Today’s intersection of NE 42nd and Killingsworth exists at the corner of four sections of the Willamette Meridian: Township 1 North Range 1 East, sections 13 and 24 to the west; Township 1 North, Range 2 East, sections 18 and 19 to the east. Here is a compilation of those two original survey maps (click in for a closer look, they are fascinating). Observations below.

On the left is Township 1 North, Range 1 East. Notable are the early grid of a young Portland in the lower left; the location of past forest fires; the proximity of early trails and the complex waterways that make up the Columbia Bayou to the north. The blue arrow indicates the approximate location of today’s NE 42nd and Killingsworth. On the right is Township 1 North, Range 2 East. Notable here are the “wet prairie” description of the Columbia Slough bottomlands in the vicinity of today’s Portland International Airport; the road running northeast, predecessor of today’s Cully Boulevard; the surveyor’s descriptors—land gently rolling, soil 2nd rate, gravelly. Timber, Fir, Hemlock, Maple—describe vegetation in the area at the time; Rocky Butte shows up as the raised topography in the center of the map.

In October 1851, surveyor Butler Ives and his crew walked all through this area in order to draw these maps, and characterized what they saw like this:

Upland situated in the middle portion of the township is gently rolling and is elevated from 50 to 100 feet above the adjoining bottoms. The soil of the above is nearly uniform and good second rate clay loam and some gravelly in the northeast portion south of the Columbia bottoms.

The bottom lands both of the Willamette and Columbia, is from 5 to 15 feet above low water, the most elevated being along the banks of the rivers and bayous; they are subject to an annual inundation lasting from 1 to 2 months in the summer season, leaving only a few of the higher places dry. They are mostly open grassland. Soil rich alluvial and badly cut up with bayous, stagnant ponds and lakes which render nearly one half of them unfit for a cultivation.

The timber on most of the uplands is heavy and varies from 1 to 2 and in some instances to 250 feet in height. It is principally fir with a little maple, cedar, hemlock and dogwood interspersed.

The undergrowth is vinemaple, maple, brush and is usually thick; there is considerable dead and fallen timber caused by fire which has run through most of this Township.

In the bottoms is ash, willow balm, Gilead, crabapple with oak, and is found skirting the banks of the rivers and bayous. The undergrowth is in thick mixture patches of hardwoods, rose bushes gooseberry bushes and vines. The Columbia bayou is deep in most places and will admit boats drawing several feet of water. The other bayous are generally shallow.

As more people arrived, the surrounding lands were further divided, sold and developed. Wetlands to the north were drained for agriculture. More roads were built and active steamboat commerce developed on the nearby Columbia River. In 1882, a short stretch of dirt road in the growing nearby town of Albina was dedicated as Killingsworth Street, named for prominent real estate developer William Killingsworth. One year later—1883—the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company opened an east-west rail line passing nearby to the south that connected Portland with a growing network of regional and national railways.

A patchwork emerges

Our crossroads was well outside the eastern boundary of East Portland, which in 1891 consolidated with the towns of Albina and Portland (on the west side of the river) to form the single City of Portland. A rough north-south gravel trace known as the County Road (today’s NE 42nd Avenue) was carved out connecting the east-west predecessor of today’s Fremont Street with the east-west road along the Columbia Slough (today’s Columbia Boulevard). Growing population and commerce continued to boost Portland’s expansion. By the turn of the century, lands that 50 years earlier had been taken from indigenous people and deeded by the federal government to a handful of incoming families were being subdivided and sold into hundreds of parcels.

A patchwork of agriculture and development dotted the surrounding landscape with small farmsteads of orchards, berries and vegetables interspersed with homesites. Below is a detail from a USGS 1897 map of the area (star shows location of NE 42nd and Killingsworth). Notable here is that Killingsworth does not go farther east; development does not proceed much farther east than NE 7th; scattered farmsteads occupy the area of today’s neighborhoods; the Irvington race course at NE 7th and Fremont shows up in lower left.

Because of the area’s distance from the downtown core, its location beyond easy access to the streetcar system which promoted development, and its agricultural productivity, the crossroads remained largely rural until the opening of Portland Airbase in 1941, which was then a brand-new facility built on the reclaimed floodplain wetlands just south of the Columbia River.

Post-war boom ignites interest

The wartime expansion of manufacturing, residential growth and military operations drew new attention to the area, leading to transportation improvements and northern extension of NE 42nd Avenue with a viaduct over the Columbia River Highway, making it a major throughway from the eastside to the airbase. Residential and commercial development followed. Portland’s post-war housing boom in the 1950s led to further development, including more subdivisions, construction of a busy trailer park at the northeast corner of the intersection, and city acquisition of remaining nearby farm lands into what would become today’s Fernhill Park just to the northwest.

By the 1960s the area had been annexed into Portland proper. A commercial hub had developed at NE 42nd and Killingsworth including large and small grocery stores, service stations, bars, restaurants and light manufacturing. In the mid-1960s, the Portland School Board condemned a portion of the surrounding area to build John Adams High School, in direct opposition to residents’ wishes, razing homes and businesses. The school complex was later transitioned into Whitaker Middle School, and eventually torn down in 2006 due to changing student demographic needs and concerns about radon gas and the presence of unhealthy black mold found throughout the building.

Next: From farm fields to city lots – plats and development arrive

Time Travel at NE 30th and Killingsworth

March 9, 2024 By in Concordia, Observed, Old Photos, Then and Now Tags: , 3 Comments

Photographs taken 91 years apart remind us about change and constancy at a busy corner in the neighborhood. Check it out:

Top: View looking east, Joseph Laurence Fay (1906-1951) poses in front of his business at the southeast corner of NE 30th and Killingsworth in 1933. Photo from the Oregon Journal Negative Collection at the Oregon Historical Society, Lot 1368; Box 372; 372A1209. Bottom: The same view in March 2024, when this storefront was in transition.

Built in 1927, this commercial block of storefronts has housed everything from Fay’s Drugs and Fountain–pictured here in a photo from the Oregon Journal in 1933–to the RCA Service Company, to the Portland Venetian Blind Company. In the 1950s it was home to neighborhood dentist Dr. Tinkle. More recently, it’s been a coffee shop and café, a bar and a game arcade.

This busy corner, known as Foxchase, is well worth exploring: several good restaurants, a great cocktail lounge, a new bakery and more. And the story of Foxchase is pretty fascinating too, be sure to check it out.

New Builder Biographies | Check for your address

January 18, 2024 By in Builders Tags: , , 5 Comments

We’ve added two more builder biographies to our growing collection of Portland area home builders from the early 20th Century: A.C. Galbraith, a prolific builder of small bungalows, based in St. Johns; and W.H Dunn, a retired Canadian wheat-grower-turned-builder who started his building career late and operated in Irvington, Alameda and Laurelhurst.

Both were in early on the building boom of the 1920s. Both worked mostly from standard plan sets. Both built most of their houses on speculation, without a contract or particular client in mind on faith the house would sell. And both were crushed by the Great Depression, like so many builders.

Their trials and accomplishments add to our understanding of the times.

More builder profiles to follow (we love doing these) and appreciate the suggestions from readers. If you haven’t read the bio of Harry Phillips and the recent comments from his great-great granddaughter who found our profile of Harry, do check it out.

Too icy: January 17th program rescheduled to January 31st

January 17, 2024 By in Uncategorized Tags: , 2 Comments

Our recent foray into historic snow and ice storms seems to have been eclipsed by the current conditions!

Sellwood Water Tower during the 1916 silver thaw event. Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, image OrgLot151_PGE139-4

Due to the current ice storm, this evening’s scheduled program on the Oregon Home Builders has been rescheduled to the same time and place on Wednesday evening, January 31st. The free program is sponsored by the Alameda Neighborhood Association and RSVPs are required.

To reserve your spot, please e-mail the Alameda Neighborhood Association at alamedanewsletter@gmail.com. Doors open at 7:00 and the association will have light refreshments on hand.

Stay safe out there.

History of Snow, reprised

January 13, 2024 By in Observed Tags: , , 3 Comments

In the midst of the current blizzard, we’ve been reminiscing about past winters and pieces we’ve written here over the last 17 years (can it really be 17 years?) that explore the timelessness of snow.

Deadman’s Hill, February 2021

There’s the piece that explores the story behind Deadman’s Hill, which will once again be alive with sledders reenacting more than a century of tradition.

There’s our Billy Collins poem-inspired History of Snow piece that looks back at a century of Portland winters and a few photos from the snowy neighborhood in 1936.

There’s the Oregon Historical Society treasure trove of ice storm photos from 1916, and an analysis of ice storms before 1916.

We’re in it now. But the daffodils are patiently waiting.

Join for an evening of local history – January 17, 2024

January 3, 2024 By in Builders Tags: , 1 Comment

In collaboration with the Alameda Neighborhood Association, I’ll be presenting a program on the work of the Oregon Home Builders Co., Wednesday, January 17, 2024 from 7:30-9:00 p.m. at the Fremont United Methodist Church (2620 NE Fremont), and you’re invited (RSVPs required, see below).

The Oregon Home Builders company set out in 1912 to pursue its vision of homebuilding market domination by selling stock to investors and by building memorable homes for its customers. During five years between 1912-1917, the company built more than 125 homes, including many in Alameda, several of which are listed today in the National Register of Historic Places.

The company was unique among homebuilders of the era because it catered to both ends of the economic spectrum: large, charismatic custom-designed homes for the wealthy, and simple, affordable thoughtfully-designed bungalows for those just entering the housing market. Join me for an inside look at the intriguing rise and fall of the company and the legacy of its homes today.

To reserve your spot for the January 17, 2024 program, please e-mail the Alameda Neighborhood Association at alamedanewsletter@gmail.com. Reservation deadline is January 10th. Doors open at 7:00 and the association will have light refreshments on hand.

The Alameda Neighborhood Association is a neighbor-led board that advocates for smart policies, takes action on neighbors’ concerns, facilitates communication about neighborhood issues, hosts events to bring residents together and publishes the quarterly newsletter AlamedaPDX.

New Years Eve 1923

December 31, 2023 By in Historic News Clippings Tags: 3 Comments

In the spirit of all the year-end reviews and lists floating around at the bottom of the year, we thought it might be interesting to look back to 1923 for a little perspective.

100 years ago tonight, Portland was in the jaws of a cold snap with temperatures in the teens accompanied by a dusting of snow. The front page of our evening paper—the Oregon Journal—previewed celebrations on tap in local theaters, cabarets and dance halls and included stories about plans for bridges over the Willamette River at Ross Island and on Burnside.

From the Oregon Journal, December 31, 1923

Elsewhere in the newspaper 100 years ago tonight—and on our favorite topic of historic homebuilding—is a review of the very busy building business in Portland for 1923. 3,000 single family dwellings built at a value of $11 million. Have a look at the numbers that go back to 1912, a barometer of economic conditions in Portland that track with the trends we’ve found in our building permit review. Interesting discussion of architectural styles too:

From the Oregon Journal, December 31, 1923

Appearing with this story is a homebuilder’s greatest hits photo montage from 1923. Click in for a closer look:

Happy New Year from Alameda History!

In praise of Swedish homebuilders

December 23, 2023 By in Builders, Research Tags: , , , 2 Comments

Two new profiles to add to The Builders collection, both Swedish immigrants, one who had a brother in the business that we have already profiled, though they chose to spell their last names differently.

Stockholm Harbor, summer 2023

Herman Nelson, who immigrated through Canada in his early 20s a few years ahead of his younger brother builder Emil Nilson; and August Malmquist, or as he is more frequently referred to on building permits as A.C. Malmquist. Learning more about the third Nelson/Nilson brother, Oscar, is still on our to-do list.

Included in all of these profiles is a list of homes built by these builders, so by all means check to see if your address is here.

These three Swedish carpenters built hundreds of houses in Northeast Portland neighborhoods, and operated mostly as Mom-and-Pop businesses, with spouses’ names occasionally showing up on real estate transactions. Their business was building houses, but they were family people too, and were active members in the Swedish community in Oregon.

We are reminded about the contributions made by so many immigrants to the shaping of these neighborhoods, and about the racial restrictions and systems that have kept others away.