If you’re a frequent AH visitor, you know we love old photographs, particularly when they include a house or building still around today, a vintage street scene that transports us back in time, or maybe a neighborhood mystery that needs solving.

Here’s an amazing photo you might think was taken in rural Oregon, maybe in the thick Douglas-fir forest up near Mt. Hood. Have a good look at the picture before you scroll down to see exactly where it’s from (click on the image for a very sharp and enlarged version).

Ready for its actual location: Northeast 40^th and Failing, looking northwest. Seriously.

Here’s the same view today.

This is the first of a series of photographs we’re going to roll out over the next few posts, showing the very early days of the Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood, dating back to the 1920s. Life-long resident Paul Kirkland sought us out after learning of our passion for old photos and wanted to make sure his photos had a good digital home and were appreciated. Thank you Paul, and no problem there. We were thrilled to see these photos, which are about as close as possible to time travel.

The common denominator in these images that we’ll roll out in the next few weeks is Paul’s grandmother, Bessie Kramer, who lived in the neighborhood and ran Beaumont Dry Goods and Book Shelf store at the corner of NE 43^rd and Fremont.

Bessie Bartos Kramer Weber was born in Iowa in 1894 and first appears in the Oregon record in the 1920 federal census with her husband Jessie and infant daughter Maxine. In the 1920s and 1930s, she lived in the neighborhood in several locations both as a boarder and then a renter.

Grandson Paul says that when this picture was taken, probably in the mid-1920s, Bessie and her husband Jessie Kramer were living in the small hip-roofed house on the left (which we think has been added to over time and is today’s 3829 NE Failing). The house on the right, which has recently been on the market, is 3905 NE 40^th, built in 1922.

Stay tuned: some amazing pictures of Bessie’s Beaumont business at NE 43^rd and Fremont are next, which will provide the basis for some good discussion about the early Beaumont business district.

Thanks Paul!