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.
Alameda Old House History 
Where in Sellwood? I’m curious about the building in the background.
Hi David. It’s a great photo, isn’t it? From a collection of 1916 ice storm photos at the Oregon Historical Society that came to them from PGE. There is no location information in the photo caption, unfortunately, so some location detective work is called for…
I’ve had a chance to scour Sanborn maps and early aerial photos of Sellwood, and I think this water tower was perched on a bluff at the southeast corner of SE Spokane and Grand, just above today’s Sellwood Riverfront Park. In 1916, that area was teeming with lumber manufacturing operations: the Oregon Door Company was just to the south and the massive East Side Lumber Mill just to the north. The site was also very convenient to a water supply: the river. The old Sellwood Bridge that passed through this area was still a decade off. After the bridge was put through, a taller steel water tower structure was erected in the same location.
Sanborn Plate 567 (which you can find on-line through the Multnomah County Library) shows the mill office just east of the water tower. My hunch is that office is the fine cupola we see in the background. Sellwood, in today’s southeast Portland, was incorporated as its own city in 1889 and annexed into Portland in 1893.