Category Archives: Neighborhood Mysteries

A worthy research rabbit hole: Brian’s Mysterious Vanport Survivor

June 3, 2022 By in Memories, Neighborhood Mysteries, Observed, Research Tags: , , , 8 Comments

We’ve been down enough amazing research rabbit holes to recognize a special gem when we see one.

This spring, AH friend Brian Burk completed a research odyssey that turned up fascinating clues about the Vanport flood, an extinct airfield, daredevil pilot Tex Rankin, and one particular old barn and house, all of it centered on North Portland’s Delta Park. He calls it A Mysterious Vanport Survivor. Truly worth 15 minutes of your time. Note that you have to scroll down from the main page to see all the good stuff.

Brian’s multi-media website weaves all these pieces together artfully—along with his history detective narrative —to provide a lens that will change the way you look at a local landscape and history you thought you knew.

Brian is a multi-media journalist, born and raised in Northeast Portland, who loves documenting the beauty of the world and its people through still and moving images. You can see more of his work here.

Fixing the Perfect Labyrinth

March 10, 2022 By in Alameda Park, Maps, Neighborhood Mysteries, The Plats Tags: , , , 15 Comments

Those nice sweeping bends leading north from Knott Street between NE 29th and 31st in the Alameda neighborhood are not there by accident: they were put there on purpose to solve a very specific problem.

But there was a slow-moving accident that made them necessary and it involved bad the absence of planning, perhaps a measure of greed and too little communication, plus the passage of time. Figuring out this back story has been a bit of a puzzle, which is fine because it represented an historic puzzle on a scale never attempted back in the day, more than 100 years ago.

You know the bends we’re talking about. Take a look:

Google Earth image showing the area bounded by Siskiyou, 29th, 33rd and Knott which posed major challenges to developers in the 19-teens until the city came up with a simple idea but hard-to-achieve plan. Toward the bottom of the photo, note the curved streets leading north off Knott at NE 29th, NE 30th and NE 31st.

Understanding Plats and Subdivisions

To understand what happened here, it helps to know about plats and subdivisions, which are different than actual neighborhood names. Portland is made up of more than 900 plats. A plat is a localized engineering plan and legal survey for development of a subdivision that shows the precise location of streets and lots. Back in the day developers gave these plats names that would catch a prospective home buyer’s eye, or that meant something to the developer.

Today’s Alameda neighborhood, for instance, is made up of 23 separate plats, all filed at different times by different developers who were competing with each other and speculating on market conditions when they bought chunks of what had been old homesteads and farms claimed in the 1850s and 1860s. There was indeed an Alameda Park plat (filed in 1909 by the Alameda Land Company), but it’s only one piece of what the City of Portland today refers to as the Alameda neighborhood. 22 other subdivision plats—with names now lost to time except on property legal descriptions—make up today’s neighborhood.

Here in today’s Alameda we’re made up of the following plats: Alameda Park, Olmsted Park, Meadow Park, Linlithgow Park, Homedale, Irvington, Irvingdale, Irvingwood, Edgemont, Charleston’s Addition, Pearson’s Addition, Stanton Street Addition, Hudson’s Addition, Gile Addition, Town of Wayne, Town of Wayne Replat, Quinn’s addition to Town of Wayne, Waynewood, Dunsmeade, Hillside, George Place, Bowering Donation Land Claim Tract, Norton’s Subdivision, and Gleneyrie. Phew. All filed by different owners/developers with the county surveyor in the 40 years between 1882-1922.

Remembering the deep history of these lands

Going back in time, it’s important to remember that before these lands were claimed as homesteads by the first white Euro-American arrivals, the federal government forcibly dispossessed the area’s indigenous people from these lands. All of us in the Portland area live today on lands ceded to the U.S. by Chinookan tribes and bands; their former home lands since time immemorial. Read more about this deep history here.

This area was part of the City of East Portland until 1891

The east side wasn’t actually Portland until after 1891, it was East Portland, a separate city. Prior to that, we were three separate cities sharing some limited common infrastructure, but with different character and focus: Portland (on the west side of the river), East Portland and Albina.

In 1891—in an attempt to roll together the greater Portland area population into one number that would intimidate rival Seattle which was growing fast—the three towns consolidated into one (46,385 people in Portland + 10,000 people in East Portland + 5,000 people in Albina = 61,385 people total in the Portland “metropolitan” area). Take that, Seattle (total 1890 population: 42,837).

There had been a boomlet of development about the time the transcontinental railroad arrived in Portland in the spring of 1882, when some plats were filed in East Portland including “The Town of Wayne” plat in the heart of today’s Alameda. After the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in 1905, which put Portland on the map, a bunch more plats were filed, and then again during the 1920s, after the pandemic.

But let’s get back to the bends.

Too many disconnected plats – a real estate collision

Think of this accident of time as a kind of real estate development collision. The helter-skelter nature of platting before we became part of Portland—fueled in part by spikes in the real estate market which drove owners to create small, disconnected parcels on paper that were never actually developed—resulted in plats with different types of street and lot layouts. As larger, newer and better-planned subdivisions spread out to divide up more territory, the patchwork northwest corner of 33rd and Knott became a vortex of confusion. The city coined a perfect term for it at the time: misfit platting.

Some plats had alleys, some didn’t. Some had many narrow lots. Some had fewer larger lots. There was only one through street and it had varying widths. Corners didn’t line up. There was no street naming protocol. In short, it was a mess.

But the area was still just multiple hopeful plans on paper—these were open fields well into the late 19-teens, even though more than 45 owners had already bought in—and people continued buying, holding and even trading lots as a speculative investment. Here’s what it looked like by about 1915:

This diagram from the Oregon Journal on May 20, 1918 shows the jumble of plats that used to occupy the area bounded today by NE Siskiyou on the north, Knott on the south, 33rd on the east and 29th on the west. The plats include: Town of Wayne, (1882); Quinn’s Addition to the Town of Wayne, (1886); Hudson’s Addition, (1892); Fairview Addition, (1889); Meadow Park (1890); and Charleston’s Addition, (1895). A careful examination shows that each plat is organized differently. Note that the Fairview Addition even had alleys.

In the early 1910s, with construction and sales well underway in nearby Irvington, Alameda, Beaumont and Rose City Park, developers turned to the next nearby open lands in the pipeline for development and found this total mess.

There was only one real solution that came to mind: Go back to the drawing board and replat the whole area, something never done on this scale (and perhaps never since). But how you do that with specific lots already owned by dozens of hopeful investors in planned subdivisions that had been legally filed and on the books for as long as 30 years?

You see the problem now.

It first surfaced in the newspaper in February 1915:

From The Oregonian, February 12, 1915

The problem percolated among the property owners and the city engineering office for a while until they developed an ambitious plan about how to proceed:

From the Oregon Journal, June 20, 1915

Fisher’s meeting with the property owners went well and all but one got on board. A petition was signed a few months later to send a message of good faith to the city. The last line of the article summed up the problem nicely: the addition is said to be a perfect labyrinth.

From the Oregon Journal, January 9, 1916

The city engineers worked with the Title and Trust Company to do the necessary temporary title transfers to a holding trust that would allow a clean slate and then started drawing different lines, keeping everyone whole, eliminating the labyrinth, adding those curves, and retitling every single lot back out of the temporary trust. The result was a brand-new subdivision called Waynewood, a tip of the hat we suppose to the old Town of Wayne plat and the Irvingwood subdivision just to the north.

The official plat of Waynewood filed with the Multnomah County Surveyor on February 2, 1918 containing the brand-new retitled lots and redrawn streets. In addition to understanding how the curves came to be, the replatting process also explains the misaligned corner at NE 29th and Siskiyou.

A story in the Oregon Journal on May 30, 1920 explained the process and the benefits:

Today all of the energy and consternation that went into that process is completely invisible to us here in their imagined future (at least until now), our only clues the graceful curved streets that lead north from Knott Street. Those curves are reflected south of Knott as well, but they came later when the subdivision known as Dolph Park was platted in 1924, and that’s another story.

If you like neighborhood history puzzles like this as much as we do, check out the Prescott Jog, the Ainsworth Long Block, the Ghost of Crane Street and remembering Laura Hamblet.

Searching for the 1920s Alameda woodcutter

December 29, 2020 By in Beaumont-Wilshire, Historic News Clippings, Memories, Neighborhood Mysteries, Photo Detective Tags: , , 4 Comments

A few years back, about this time of the year, we found a story in The Oregonian from the fall of 1921 that caught our attention. It was about a so-called hermit, a woodcutter who had lived much of his life in a one-room shack near Bryce Street, before Bryce was even a street and before the neighborhoods were built.

The newspaper story was trying to be one of novelty, but underneath it was actually a story of displacement. O’Donaghue was being moved on from the shack in the woods where he lived because land was being cleared and houses built.

Joseph Albert O’Donaghue told of helping clear forests to make the roads we know today, and of wolves and bears he’d killed right here on Alameda Ridge.

Some of it sounded a little fantastical. Like his memories of being a rifleman in the Crimean war 70 years earlier. Of being at least 90 years old. Of walking from Portland to San Francisco and back again.

But a bunch of it had a ring of truth and carried enough information that 100 years later, we could do a little diligence on his stories.

So before we apply some research tools to Mr. O’Donaghue’s story, read the piece below that ran in The Oregonian back on September 18, 1921. And if you want to get in the right frame of mind, you might also read our post Time Passes In Alameda from December 30, 2010, reminding us of so many layers of history here in these neighborhoods.

A careful read of the 1921 story helps us identify certain things to fuel our inquiry:

  • Researchers like a name like Joseph Albert O’Donaghue. Distinctive and traceable.
  • He was from Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada.
  • He worked for Bernard Brandenburg, and his Bryce Street shack was on property Brandenburg owned.
  • He knew P.O. Collier (who offered him a new place to live).
  • He was a Mason.
  • He was a firewood cutter.
  • He had family in San Francisco.
  • He was a reader.

That’s enough to get us going. Here’s what we found:

The 1910 federal census shows O’Donaghue at age 67, single, living as a “hired man” with two other boarders and a cook in an unaddressed building near 37th and Fremont. It lists his birth year as 1843, from Canada, his father from Ireland, mother from Scotland, and that he arrived in the US in 1878. He reported himself as working full time as a farm laborer. We couldn’t find him in the 1920 census.

The annual Polk city directories track O’Donaghue’s presence like this:

  • 1888 listed as a laborer, boarding somewhere in East Portland (that was us before we became part of Portland proper in 1891).
  • 1906 listed as a laborer, boarding near Fremont and 36th.
  • 1916-1917 listed as a laborer, living near NE 35th and The Alameda.
  • 1921 still working as a laborer, living near NE 35th and Fremont.

His trail goes cold after the 1921 newspaper story, no city directory listings. Nothing. Then in March 1927, a death notice in Esson, British Columbia for Joseph A. O’Donaghue, age 80. Is this our man? Hard to know.

So to the next question: where was O’Donaghue’s shack? We know the property where he lived was owned by Bernard Brandenburg, who owned quite a few lots in the Spring Valley Addition, east of NE 33rd.

Spring Valley is one of the oldest plats in the area, filed on November 6, 1882 by “Clara L. Files, Spinster,” and encompassing the area east-west between 33rd and 37th and north-south between Skidmore and Bryce, including today’s Wilshire Park.

Brandenburg owned six lots which today make up the north end of the two blocks just south of Shaver between NE 33rd and 35th (when 33rd was the only road out here, the numbered streets in this vicinity didn’t exist). We’ve circled them below in red. If he lived on property Brandenburg owned, we’d guess that could be the location of O’Donaghue’s old shack.

Here’s a look at the 1925 aerial photo, with the Spring Valley Addition circled in red. Was the shack somewhere out there?

1925 aerial photo over the Spring Valley Addition. Bryce is incorrectly labeled as Beech. The dense stand of trees is today’s Wilshire Park. Aerial photo courtesy of City of Portland Archives.

Perry O. Collier was a popular and successful local real estate salesman who worked these properties as they came on the market. He may have been the one who handled the Spring Valley property deal with John L. Hartman, the big-time Portland attorney-banker-developer behind Rose City Park and other major subdivisions. Hartman bought the Spring Valley Addition property and replatted it for subdivision in June 1921. Those plans are probably what was leading to O’Donaghue’s ouster in September 1921.

This is where the story might bump into something we already know.

Not long after starting the blog—way back in 2007—we met three of the “boys” who grew up in this part of the neighborhood in the 1930s and 1940s. As often happens, our conversations led to questions, maps in hand, that would help turn back the clock. The boys told us about an old man who lived in this area, and we wrote about it in the post Memory Fragments | An old man and his dog, and a follow-up post Memory Map, which featured handwritten notes made on an old Sanborn map from one of the boys—Dick Taylor—about that exact property…that it was owned by the old man’s family. Hmm.

Is this our man? We’ll never know.

But the trip back in time is enough to reset our mental picture of the neighborhood we think we know today, and to feed our imagination. Think about that the next time you’re out on an evening stroll up Bryce on a cold night at the end of the year.

In 1911, it’s snowing

January 15, 2020 By in Lost Buildings, Neighborhood Mysteries, Observed, Old Photos, Then and Now Tags: , 3 Comments

With thoughts about snow in the air, let’s turn back the clock to 1911.

From time to time, AH reader and Portland photo collector Norm Gholston sends along a gem or two from neighborhoods we know well—and some we’re still learning about. Here’s a killer image Norm shared recently, a “real photo” postcard from 1911 that shows a mom and pop grocery from Killingsworth Avenue at the southern edge of today’s Arbor Lodge neighborhood.

There’s so much to see and think about in this photo. Click in for a good look and we’ll share some insights:

Photo courtesy Norm Gholston

Snow! Those four-legged traction devices look pretty steady, don’t they?

As the writing on the wagon to the left says (and the numbers on the window to the left of the front door suggest), this is 155 Killingsworth Avenue, which before Portland’s Great Renumbering was actually 155 West Killingsworth. When you map that out today, it takes you to 2225 N. Killingsworth, located on the north side of the street just east of the N. Omaha Tree Way, a four-block-long Arbor Lodge boulevard.

Here’s where this is today, first by map, and then by Google Streetview

 

In this contemporary Google Streetview image, the horses and wagons would be parked near the utility pole in front of the white gate.

 

Detail from Sanborn Plate 521 shows the area in 1924. Arrow indicates location of Ockley Green Groceries and Meat.

Interestingly enough, there must be some remnant of the old market building underneath the existing structure of the auto shop that exists at that address today, because a plumbing permit still on file for that address tracks back to construction of the market building in July 1909, and tells us it was indeed a store.

The wagon on the right, with the grinning driver in his great gauntlet gloves, buttoned-up tunic and basket of greens, is driving for Pierson Brothers Grocery, also housed at 155 W. Killingsworth (look very carefully at the writing on his wagon). What was in that drinking jug on the far right next to the kerosene can?

Neither the Pierson Brothers nor Ockley Green Groceries and Meat appear in any of the Polk city directories either side of 1911 when this photo was taken, but don’t tell these guys that. We’ve scoured through newspapers and other business listings of the era and don’t find reference to these businesses either, though the grocery operated for years after the photo was taken. Help wanted ads from 1910 sought an experienced meat cutter to come in on Saturdays. Perhaps that’s when the fresh meat arrived from the nearby Portland Union Stockyards.

Be sure to appreciate the school girls: the younger girl on the right pulling a sled; both are layered up in their wool coats and hats and good winter boots.

Some clever volunteer editor has scratched out the words under the sign near the stairs, readable between the two utility poles. Yes, we can read “Grocery & Meat Market.” No, we can’t read whatever you crossed out. Was it a person’s name? The scratch-out edits were applied directly to the postcard, not to the actual Foster and Kleiser sign. Why?

Thanks to the 1910 census, we know who is living up those unpainted stairs, behind the open screen door. It’s Frank B. and Margaret Ford, who built the building. Ford was a real estate speculator dealing primarily in grocery stores like this and other simple first-floor commercial properties. Frank and Margaret bought and sold many properties on the eastside over the years and when things got tight, Frank took some liberties with certain documents, which got him arrested in 1929 for real estate fraud. But in 1909, he knew the right place to build a market with the new and booming Overlook neighborhood all around.

Frank B. Ford and his partner Theil also built the commercial block across the street which now houses the Milk Glass Market (which is well worth a visit by the way for a coffee and look around at the neat old market building insides). Back to the photo, look carefully at the reflection in the market window panes and you might even be able to make out the form of the building across the street and its clapboard siding. Check out the Sanborn plate again (and the streetview) and you can see the Milk and Glass Market building directly across the street.

Be sure to note the rails running east-west on Killingsworth, visible in the far left bottom of the photo. This is the St. Johns car line. In the 1890s,  somewhere nearby behind the photographer was the re-load point where the steam train came and went to St. Johns and riders transferred to the electric trolley line that ran east and then south toward Portland. A station was built here–at the corner of Killingsworth and Omaha on the south side of the street–and it was called the Ockley Green Station; later it served the electric trolley that went all the way through to St. Johns. You’ll find dozens of references to it in early newspapers of the day. Real estate ads selling houses or renting apartments all say “near Ockley Green Station.” No need for an address or even a cross-streets, everyone knew where Ockley Green Station was (though, thankfully, some did explain Omaha and Killingsworth was the spot).

There’s another mystery we’ve been puzzling over that will remain unsolved for the moment (we’re not without our hunches): the name Ockley Green taken by the station and the market, and eventually the school.

Here’s what we know for sure:

  • Ockley Green was the name of the station from early days. It was not named for a person. There is no person in any of the Portland decadal censuses during that time or in any city directory of that era that we examined with that name.
  • The school that exists today at Ainsworth and Interstate (10 blocks to the northeast) built in 1925 takes its name from the Ockley Green Station. Documents from the Portland Public School archive tell us this fact. The original building was actually built as “Multnomah Public School” in 1893 at N. Missouri and Shaver, but was moved to Interstate and Ainsworth about 1901, and its name changed to Ockley Green (for the station) in about 1909. The first building was demolished and the one we know today built in 1925. But that’s another story.
  • There is no underlying plat or development plan with this name, no streets or other features. It was more of a “district” than a specific place.
  • Ockley is a picturesque town in Surrey in southern England with a much-written about commons or “green.” Even today, Surrey’s heritage authority reports the most important feature of little Ockley town…”is the long, broad green, which is said to be one of the most impressive in southern England.” Both the green and the town were celebrated in writing and in art during the 1800s. Here’s an example:

From London News, 1851.

We’ve had a good look around on this naming mystery, talked to the Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association, consulted all of our usual helpful print and public document sources and even stumped a few research librarians. The definitive story behind origin of the name Ockley Green has apparently slipped away, at least for the moment. We have our hunches: immigrant Portlanders with roots in Surrey saw something about the open landscape of the early neighborhood that reminded them of home, and it was comforting to have the place and the memory with them. We completely understand this.

Meanwhile in 1911, it was snowing at 155 West Killingsworth and the grocerymen were still delivering, the kids ready for adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figuring out the Ainsworth long block

February 12, 2019 By in Alberta-Vernon, Concordia, Historic News Clippings, Neighborhood Mysteries, Observed, The Plats Tags: , , , , 8 Comments

While walking in the neighborhood—the best way to observe history in action—we’ve wondered about the very long block between Ainsworth and Simpson, bounded by NE 33rd and NE 37th. Maybe you’ve wondered too: the north-south streets of 34th, 35th and 36th don’t go through, leaving unusually deep and narrow lots. These kinds of things—like the strange zig-zag on Prescott we call the Prescott Street Jog—make us ask: What’s the story behind that?

Here, take a look. It’s the block just west of Fernhill Park:

That’s one long block. A Google image looking northwest at the long block (outlined in green). Note that none of the numbered cross streets, from 33rd to 37th, cross this long block. How come?

The long, narrow configuration of this block stems from decisions made more than 100 years ago by John D. Kennedy, the man who once owned much of the property between Killingsworth, Ainsworth, NE 33rd and NE 42nd, and for whom Kennedy School was named.

We met John D. Kennedy in our recent post about his 1929 zone change petition to turn nearby residential land at 33rd and Killingsworth into commercial property.

Born in County Limerick, Ireland in 1852, Kennedy immigrated to Oregon in 1866, finding his way to Baker City where he worked in and then owned a dry goods store. After coming to Portland about 1881, Kennedy bought this property—then outside the city limits and far from anything that even looked like development—which was originally part of the 1855 Isaac Rennison Donation Land Claim.

John D. Kennedy, about 1920. Photo originally from the Ryerson Collection, borrowed here from McMenamin’s Kennedy School.

Kennedy was an early-in speculator, perhaps 15 years ahead of his time and the market. Northeast Portland’s ripeness for real estate didn’t really take place until the years after the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition when it seemed anyone who could was buying property or building houses.

But Kennedy had platted these lands as the Kennedy Addition back in 1890, a grid of 15 square blocks with more than 200 lots. Here’s his original plat:

 

Kennedy Addition plat filed with the Multnomah County Surveyor’s Office, 1890. The grid survived, even if the street names didn’t. Translation: County Road = NE 33rd; Cleveland Street = NE 34th; Harrison Street = NE 35th; Morton Street (which was built as Marguerite Avenue)= NE 35th Place; Thurman Street = NE 36th; Blaine Street = NE 37th Avenue; Cypress Avenue = Jessup Street; Myrtle Avenue = Simpson Street. Barkholtz was an inholding property owner who wasn’t Kennedy but who went along with the plat. Interesting to note that in later years, that is the one area of the long block where a cul de sac was built.

Two years later in 1892, he platted Kennedy’s Second Addition, adjacent to the east, with more street names that didn’t make it to today (Morrow, Gilliam, Hughes and Francis). His Second Addition contained plans for another 120 homes. Speculators filed several other nearby plats about that time, including Foxchase, Irvington Park, the Willamette Addition and Railroad Heights, but they were also just lines on paper. There was no market yet for residential development.

In 1906, Kennedy filed a petition with the city to “vacate” five of the blocks in his addition. The process of vacation officially eliminates platted streets (even if they don’t yet exist), and the 1906 action—approved by City Council in ordinances 15761 and 15762—essentially erased all of the north-south streets (then called Cleveland, Harrison, Morton, Thurman and Blaine, see above) in the block between Ainsworth and Simpson, from 33rd east to 37th.

 

From The Oregonian, May 10, 1906

Kennedy’s stated rationale was to sell the larger chunk of land as acreage for farm fields, which is what surrounded his property at the time. It seems he was eager to sell the property and was essentially repackaging it for what was at that moment the most active part of the market (even though Northeast Portland was on the cusp of a homebuilding explosion). Not long after the City Council action, Kennedy did just that:

Classified advertisement for the vacated property, from The Oregonian, October 21, 1906

In the years that followed as urbanization spread, neighborhoods were built to the north, south and west, and Kennedy’s smart and early real estate speculation paid off. But the 12-acre parcel, with no north-south through streets due to his 1906 decision to vacate streets from the property, stayed as one big block in farm use.

After Portland voters passed a $500,000 park acquisition bond measure in 1919, Kennedy courted the city with the long block tract—a perfect park size at 12 acres—suggesting it would make a great place for playgrounds, picnic tables and ball diamonds. This was long before Fernhill Park or Wilshire Park (which have their own interesting stories well worth reading), and concurrent with consideration of Alberta Park, which was ultimately selected over Kennedy’s tract for purchase and development. Think about that: what if today’s Alberta Park had become neighborhood streets as planned, and Kennedy’s long block was a park? Hmm.

Here’s an aerial photo of the area from 1936 that shows the long block with a few homes, the oldest dating back to 1909…purchased from Kennedy after the 1906 ordinance passed creating the 12-acre parcel. One home, on the Simpson Street side, actually pre-dates Kennedy’s 1890 plat.

Detail of 1936 aerial photo. Courtesy of University of Oregon Map & Aerial Photography Library.

Kennedy died in December 1936. In 1938, the property was controlled by Ward D. Cook, a Portland insurance and real estate agent, who designated 80 lots on the long block ready for construction. It wasn’t until after World War II when the market truly picked up, and most of the houses were built and sold between 1940 and 1950. Here’s a glimpse from 1951 that shows the property fully built out:

Detail of 1951 aerial photo. Courtesy of City of Portland Archives.

So there you have it: In the original Kennedy’s Addition plat, that one long block was going to be five blocks. But then Kennedy did away with the blocks to better sell the property. The market came and went and came back again. Then another speculator saw opportunity and turned the island of farm into the more than 50 lots there today, most of them a very long and narrow quarter-acre each.

Alberta Street Photo Sleuthing | Found!

October 15, 2018 By in Alberta-Vernon, Concordia, Neighborhood History, Neighborhood Mysteries, Observed, Photo Detective, Uncategorized Tags: , , 7 Comments

A friendly AH reader has shared an amazing photo with stories to tell, so have a good detailed look at this (click to enlarge), and then we’ll take it apart and do some sleuthing. There are so many things to think about here.

NE 26th and Alberta looking north/northeast, 1909. Photo courtesy of the Gholston Collection, used with permission.

In past entries, we’ve delved into mom and pop groceries, delivery horses and carriages, and the bustling early Alberta Street. Each is present in this picture taken at the corner of NE 26th and Alberta in 1909, three years before the Broadway Bridge was built and at a time when Portland had only 3,540 registered automobiles (so everyone was on foot, horseback or streetcar).

Just so we’re clear, Lester Park (the location painted on the side of the wagon) wasn’t a park, it was the name of a plat or subdivision, contained in today’s Concordia neighborhood (just one of multiple plats that make up today’s neighborhood). Here’s a look at that plat, filed in 1906 by H.L Chapin of the Arleta Land Company. It’s a compact little rectangle, running from Alberta on the north to Prescott on the south and between NE 25th and NE 27th, 145 total lots.

Lester Park Addition Plat, 1906. North is to the left, east is up.

The Lester Park Grocery was a dry goods and butcher store that stood in what is today an empty lot just west of the Waffle Window, 2624 NE Alberta. Its original address was 834 Alberta to be exact (remember that all of Portland was renumbered in the 1930s, so this address was before the change). The shop that H.L. Reynolds, his wife Carrie and her daughter called home also included several rooms for the family to live.

We’ve walked all over this part of Alberta with this picture in our hand, consulted early Sanborn maps of the neighborhood, examined building permits and local buildings to make an informed statement about exactly where this is. Here’s what we see and why we believe this view is looking north/northeast from out in front of Reynolds’s shop at NE 26th and Alberta:

  • There are some distinctive houses in the background of this old photo, including a church steeple, which we believe is the building on the southeast corner of NE 27th and Sumner known today as St. Luke Memorial Community Church of God (2700 NE Sumner), but was then the newly constructed United Brethren in Christ Church, built in 1910.
  • Appearing directly in front of the carriage driver in the old photo is a light colored home. This small hipped-roof house with chimney slightly off center and front dormer is today’s 5028 NE 26th (painted red) with the front porch now enclosed. This house was built in 1906. Here’s a look from Google streetview. See it under all that?

Current photo of the small house that appears just above the horse’s rump in the 1909 photograph. Look carefully at the hipped roof, mini dormer on top and slightly off-center chimney. Yep, that’s the same house. Built in 1906 by Mary L. Coger. Thanks to Google Streetview.

  • We know that in 1909 the Alberta Streetcar line (visible in the foreground of the photo) was still just two rails in the dirt; and we know this part of Alberta was not paved until the summer of 1911).
  • We also know that H.L. Reynolds, who may well be the man in the photo, was associated with the grocery until about 1910. The 1910 census shows him (age 36) and his wife Carrie living in the residence associated with the shop.

That would make the corner of the house you can see just above the horse’s head about where the corner of Mae Ploy Thai Cuisine is today (obviously a different building).

Reynolds was arrested in April 1909 for assaulting his wife and stepdaughter and disappears from the Portland scene the next year. Meanwhile Carrie takes over the shop (and probably the horse and carriage) and decides to sell it all off. Check out this series of classified ads from The Oregonian where she almost pleads for a buyer:

March 31, 1911

 

April 8, 1911

 

April 21, 1911

Carrie did eventually sell the place and leave town. The shop was taken over in 1913 by Mrs. Edna Albertson who ran it as Albertson’s Dry Goods Store (not related to today’s Albertson chain) until 1921 when she was killed in an automobile accident while traveling to Tillamook. How this photo has come down the years–who saved it and why–remains a mystery.

This picture is definitely worth 1,000 words. Thanks to Norm Gholston for the opportunity to take a trip back through time. Here’s another photo sleuthing adventure just up the street related to Ford’s Pool Hall. And one more related to a family bakery with a fascinating back story.

We love this photo and are always on the lookout for views like this that help us think about the past.

Long live the ghost of Crane Street

March 30, 2018 By in Alameda Park, Neighborhood Mysteries, Vernon Tags: 6 Comments

Regular readers will remember our recent post about the mystery of Crane Street, that interesting short and narrow road that disappears weirdly into a fence along the eastern curb line of NE 21st Avenue, and then re-emerges briefly in vestigial pieces a few blocks east on NE 24th. It’s a fascinating story of dueling subdivision plats, activist neighbors and the redrawing of maps.

Recently, we heard from neighbors along the street who knew something interesting must have happened, but weren’t quite sure what. Here’s a note from Joel Schipper on NE 24th:

We were thrilled to see your story on Crane Street — that’s our driveway/curb in the two pictures in the blog.  We’ve seen the writing in the concrete before, and in the four years we’ve lived in this house, we’ve discovered the remaining bit of Crane street over between 19th and 21st.  But we never knew the whole story — so thank you!

As a bit of ‘extra info,’ when we moved in, we found that this driveway shared with our neighbor, was essentially useless in that neither of could drive an SUV, sedan, or truck up it without scraping on the bottom, unless we essentially went up at a 45 degree ‘sideways’ angle.  So the ‘newish’ looking concrete in the picture is our collaborative hiring of a contractor to re-contour the driveway — after how many years?  Since 1924, which would be soon after this portion of Crane Street disappeared?  Both of us then had to rebuild our side walls — ours is pictured, and we hope this Spring to cover it from the bottom up with a climbing ‘native’ plant (Yarrow?), and with a spilling native — Kinickinick is already planted.

One last tidbit … two years ago on “National Night Out” in August, we hosted a block gathering on what was billed as the “Ghost of Crane Street,” a BBQ in the wide driveway.  We had neighbors who had lived on the block nearly 30 years and had never met each other!  And most were unaware of the Crane Street “driveway.”

We think it’s so cool how history has brought these neighbors together like never before, and that the ghost of Crane Street is alive in imaginations.

Right now we’re working on the mystery of Laura Avenue, the street that disappeared from use after Elwood Wiles and Company had already set the name in stone in the grid of Alameda street names. What was all that about? Who was Laura? Who suggested Edgehill?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The mystery of Crane Street

December 10, 2017 By in Alameda Park, Builders, History Walks, Neighborhood History, Neighborhood Mysteries, Observed, The Plats Tags: , Leave a comment

On a recent walk, we encountered some buried Northeast Portland history that demanded investigation and made us think of a scene from an old movie.

Do you remember that last shot at the end of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes when a distraught, time-traveling Charlton Heston collapses to the beach as the camera pans back and in the distance we see the top of the Statue of Liberty, half-buried, sticking up through the sand revealing the beachy landscape he was riding across was actually the middle of New York Harbor? Kind of like that, but not really. We did not fall to the ground.

In this case, sticking out of the pavement and sidewalk in an otherwise normal neighborhood block were remnant clues to a stretch of street that no longer exists: NE Crane Street where it once passed through the southwest corner of the Alameda Park subdivision. It was called East Crane Street before Portland’s Great Renumbering created the four quarters of the city we’re familiar with today. Take a look at what we found:

Clues to what once was. Curb corners mid-block on NE 24th Avenue where Crane Street used to pass through. Today, the former street is occupied by houses, garages and driveways like the one shown here. Looking north on the west side of the street.

 

Cast into the this corner curb now marooned mid-block is a barely visible “CRANE ST.” Today, the nearest part of Crane Street is three blocks west.

Today, Crane Street makes a short run from NE 19th to NE 21st, but it used to go all the way through to 24th. It’s always been a narrow street, a bit wider than an alley, but not much. Go check it out, and then walk NE 22nd, 23rd and 24th and look hard along the alignment of where Crane used to go, you can see clues to its past: fully formed curb corners that are now driveways. CRANE ST. stamped into the abandoned curb at mid-block. Even the crown of now-gone Crane Street—the gentle sloping away from centerline—can be seen on NE 24th where Crane used to intersect.

When we found those clues, we had to know more, so we visited our favorite source of official documents: City of Portland Archives. From official records—ordinances about renaming and street abandonment (a process called “vacation”), and petitions from neighbors—we were able to piece together an understanding of Crane Street.

First, let’s remember—from our earlier exploration of what we’ve dubbed the Prescott Jog—how strange things can happen when adjacent development plats filed at different times by different developers bump into each other. This unique little stretch of Crane Street exists at the junction of four plats, each filed by a different developer at a different time: Hillside, 1894; Vernon 1903; Alameda Park, 1909; George Place, 1910. (Check out our collection of local plats that might be of interest.)

It’s probably also worth noting the topography here: this is the edge of Alameda Ridge where other streets have a hard time getting off the hill: NE 21st zigs and zags and feels like an alley as it tries to find the crest of the ridge before becoming a real street and heading downhill to the south. Mason doesn’t even bother going through: it turns into a footpath through the former orchard on the slope of the ridge. And NE 19th is impassable: it gets stuck in a cul-de-sac where it gives up and becomes a flight of stairs.

This detail of the Vernon plat shows it all. Crane Street (once named Mason) appears at the bottom of the map, with detailed notations of a name change and two “vacations” or street closures and abandonments. Click to enlarge. Yes, this is part of the Vernon plat, though the city thinks of this area as Alameda. Read more about the difference between plat names and neighborhood names.

The Hillside plat of 1894 locked a single slice of Mason Street onto the map that other developers tried to line up with in the following years. In 1903 when the Vernon subdivision was carved from the surrounding forests and fields, Crane Street first appeared as Mason Street, trying hard to line up with the short stretch of existing Mason Street in Hillside and the Mason Street further west in an existing plat called Irvington Heights. Because the new Mason and the old Mason were so far out of alignment, local residents at this very south edge of Vernon petitioned the city in 1909 to just change the name of the street (which was still gravel) from Mason to Crane in an attempt to reduce confusion. When Alameda Park came along a few months later, the newly re-christened Mason became the chosen alignment for the Mason Street we know today.

Eugene Snyder, Portland’s leading authority on street naming, suggests the Crane namesake may have been either George Crane, an agent for Equitable Life Assurance Co., or Samuel Crane, agent for New York Life Insurance Co. We couldn’t find any logical connection to the area for these two Cranes, or any other Crane for that matter.

In 1921, a majority of property owners along East Crane asked City Council to vacate the stretch of Crane between NE 22nd and NE 24th. Along with the citizen voices was a strong letter of recommendation from Commissioner of Public Works A.L. Barbur, explaining: “this portion of Crane street is slightly less than 28 feet in width and does not in any manner form a ‘through’ street which can be rendered useful for general traffic.” Council unanimously approved the request on August 31, 1921. Soon after, the property formerly known as Crane Street between 22nd and 24th was purchased from the city, added to the Vernon plat as new lots, and homes were built. The left-over stretch of Crane between 19th and 22nd was still gravel.

In July 1930 another group of neighbors brought a petition to vacate their own stretch of Crane between NE 21st and NE 22nd, and another recommendation letter from Commissioner Barbur: “This portion is not improved and its vacation will in no wise affect the remaining area of the street, which connects with East 21st street on the east, thus affording a connection to the streets to the south. The property in this vicinity is all in residential usage and the proposed vacation will not be detrimental to the value of the surrounding property.”

A page from the petition signed by neighbors in 1930 to vacate East Crane Street between 21st and 22nd. Courtesy City of Portland Archives.

Council unanimously approved the request on October 15, 1930, and that property was purchased, replatted and built.

Today, five houses sit at least partially in the middle of those two vacated stretches of the former East Crane Street between 21st and 24th, made possible by the involvement of neighbors trying hard over 20 years to enforce order on a jumbled and frankly bumbled set of plats symptomatic of Portland’s chaotic early planning history (read about the weird Prescott Jog near NE 33rd).

Makes us wonder if maybe today’s Crane Street neighbors between 19th and 21st ought to get together for a block party to have a chat. Someone send for Commissioner Barbur…

P.S. It looks the neighbors have indeed wondered about this mystery and given the street stub its own appropriate name: check out the Ghost of Crane Street.

Old Vernon – Forgotten Neighborhood Ghost

March 11, 2017 By in Alberta-Vernon, Historic News Clippings, Lost Buildings, Memories, Neighborhood History, Neighborhood Mysteries, Observed, Old Photos, Research Tags: , , , , 7 Comments

The old Vernon School, located south of Alberta between Going and Wygant, was the center of community life for two decades. Evidence of its presence has faded to invisible today.

Everything about the old Vernon School (1907-1932) has made us want to know more:

It’s gone now, slipped below the surface of living memory leaving few traces, so we’re going to have to reconstruct a sense of it through research, experience and a little imagination, which is what we love to do.

The original Vernon School, built in 1907-1908, was located on the block bounded by NE 23rd, NE 22nd, Going and Wygant. This view of the school’s south side is looking north-northwest about 1912. The main entrance was on the north side in the center. Photo courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society.

As a public school, it was both cornerstone and hearth for the community. During the day, Old Vernon was filled with the neighborhood’s young people: in class, outside on the grounds, in the portables, in the “manual training” rooms, walking home for lunch. In the evenings, every community group, service club, parent gathering, neighborhood concert, tea, dance, or lecture drew people from the surrounding blocks into the building. It was a place and institution that connected people to each other.

Vernon School Art Classroom. Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society.

There was the sadness at the end of its time. Many families didn’t want to leave the big old building and its traditions in favor of a promised new brick school a half-mile away.

And then there was the way it went: destroyed by an arsonist on a hot summer night with the entire community looking on, in fact, jamming the streets as they streamed in to watch, unwittingly hindering the fire department’s three-alarm response.

 

 

You probably know the vicinity of the old Vernon school south of Alberta Street, but you probably never knew it was there, occupying all of Block 54 of the Vernon Addition, bounded by NE 22nd and NE 23rd between Going and Wygant. Old Vernon was a giant, imposing wood frame building that commanded the center of the block, its main doors and prominent stairs facing north. The auditorium took up the entire top floor, tucked in under the hipped roof, dormers letting in light all the way around. Periodic construction added space over the years, eventually 17 classrooms in the main building, and several outbuildings for shop, cooking and a play shed. It was a big place.

 

Sanborn panel 567 from 1924 shows old Vernon School and its outbuildings in upper right corner occupying the full block. Click on image for larger view.

Today, if you walk that block—as we have so many times looking for clues and trying to imagine the big old barn of a school—you’ll see how the brick and Cape Cod-style homes and duplexes on today’s Block 54 are different from the Craftsman and Old Portland style houses across the street built three decades earlier. Now you’ll know why.

After Old Vernon was abandoned in 1932, the school district tore down the wreckage and traded all 18 vacant lots of Block 54 (plus $2,000) to a developer for six lots adjacent to Thomas A. Edison High School, which during the 1930s-1940s occupied the corner of NE Beech and Mallory. This seems like a sweetheart deal to us, and we note the Portland School Board was split on the sale when they approved it on the night of April 11, 1940. Soon, new home construction was underway on the Old Vernon site, which was then fully built out with the houses we see today by 1945, erasing all traces of the old school.

 

 

The early story of old Vernon School is much like other eastside neighborhood schools. A building boom followed the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition, which put Portland on the national map as a desirable place to live. Open lands within four miles of downtown were bought up and platted for new development. Streetcars were the arteries of progress. And as people moved into the new neighborhoods they pushed for schools and parks.

Old Vernon opened as an eight-room school on September 15, 1908 with 324 students, many of whom were exports from Highland School (today’s Martin Luther King Jr. School at NE 6th and Wygant), which had overflowed with more than 700 students. By 1909, The Oregonian reported Vernon itself was already crowded and plans were being made to add 10 more classrooms, a covered play shed, three portables and a manual training (shop) building.

By 1914 Block 54 was a campus of four buildings, bulging at the seams with new students. Enrollment boomed, with more than 800 students at Old Vernon by the late teens. Meanwhile, plans were being made to build other nearby schools to take the pressure off and create closer-to-home options for local youngsters. Kennedy School on NE 33rd was opened in 1915 as part of this push.

Glimpses of life at Old Vernon can be found in recollected memories and newspaper clippings, including these postcard-like tastes:

“Many of the children who attended Vernon School helped in the barn prior to school each morning and weren’t always too careful about cleaning the manure from their shoes.”

“In the early years, there was one playground for the girls and another for the boys.”

“The old school had electric lights in the hallways, the principal’s office and the gymnasium where community programs were scheduled in the evenings. The classrooms had no lights. In the wintertime, when we lined up in the basement before going to class in the morning it was gray, almost too dark. If it got too dark in the classroom, we sang or listened to stories. This was good. We learned to listen.”

After arriving at school first thing, children stowed their coats in cloakrooms then lined up in the basement before marching in straight lines to their classrooms while a teacher or student played the hallway piano. One student remembered that if you stepped out of line, “you got the stick.” Old Vernon’s favorite march-to-class song was the Percy Grainger tune “Country Gardens” (which you have heard before even though you may not know its name).

“Students could roller skate or play games under a play shed in the back of the school, unless the piles of newspapers collected for periodic paper drives were too large. That was about the only time boys and girls could mingle with each other outside the classroom. Even cloakrooms were separated.”

“One teacher in a top floor classroom permitted her students to climb down the outside fire escape—quietly to avoid disturbing other classes—as a treat for being especially good.”

“Old timers recall a disciplinary ruckus which had strong repercussions in the community. This involved an older boy who defied the principal’s efforts to take him to the office. A wrestling match on the stairs between boy and principal [they reportedly fell down the stairs injuring the boy] spurred a pupil walkout, and the boy’s parents pressed charges. A hearing board exonerated the principal, but teachers and principal were reluctant to use severe punishments afterward.”

Year after year, students from Vernon School won the maypole dance competition during Rose Festival:

Maypole dancers from Vernon School won first prize at the Rose Festival in 1911. Photo courtesy of Oregon Historical Society.

 

The Oregonian, June 10, 1911

 

Apparently, Old Vernon’s academics were as strong as their maypole dance:

The Oregonian, April 3, 1927

 

By 1926, trends in school construction, safety and changing demographics were shaping the next generation of area schools.

Disastrous school building fires in other cities had galvanized the national building codes community—and Portland Mayor Harry Lane—into calling for “fireproof” buildings. Code changes were made: away from wood frame to concrete, steel and brick, and lowering the profile from multi-story to one or two stories. In 1926, some school board members proposed abandoning the existing building and locating a new Vernon School close to Alberta Park, an idea that didn’t go over well in the community. An article in the April 14, 1926 edition of The Oregonian chronicles opposition from the Vernon Daddies’ Club, a position they developed and had approved at a school-wide parent meeting:

The Oregonian, April 14, 1926

But the Daddies’ Club and the Vernon school community were on the losing end of the argument.  By 1927, the school board was on the hunt for property and wanted the city to carve off the southern five acres of Alberta Park on Killingsworth between 19th and 22nd for the new school site. The community pushed back on this—whether to protect the park or because they just didn’t like the idea of losing Old Vernon we’ll never know—and was upheld by City Attorney Frank S. Grant, with a finding on October 15, 1927 that Alberta Park, which had been acquired through condemnation in March 1921, must be protected as park land and not used for a school

After being spurned by City Attorney Grant at Alberta Park, the board focused on a two-block area across the street, bounded by Killingsworth, Emerson, 20th and 22nd, where almost two dozen homes had already been built and 13 vacant lots were ready for more home construction.

A late-night meeting of the school board on December 2, 1929 heard several hours of public testimony on the acquisition, and according to The Oregonian, spiraled into “a sharp verbal combat between the directors,” but ultimately resulted in direction to move forward on the Killingsworth property. Gaining this site for a new school meant major work for school district staff, which they took on, eventually acquiring the property, demolishing the homes and getting the city to vacate NE 21st Avenue where it bisected the site. This took two years of wrangling.

Sanborn panel 533 from 1924 shows the area of today’s Vernon School prior to acquisition by the Portland School District. Today’s Vernon occupies the two blocks between 20th and 22nd, bounded by Emerson and Killingsworth. The large empty block at the top left is Alberta Park. Click on image for a larger view.

Meanwhile back at Old Vernon, students continued to fill the aging, creaking classrooms, play outside in the sheds and open fields, and gather in the top floor auditorium. The city granted authority to temporarily close East 22nd Street during the school day so students could play in the street. Community clubs, concerts, lectures and Boy Scout troop meetings continued–the headquarters of Troop 33 was the Old Vernon basement.

On April 8, 1930, after acquiring the Killingsworth property, the school board auctioned off the remaining abandoned houses.

A $250,198 contract for construction of new Vernon was awarded on July 6, 1931 to F.S. Starbard and Company of Portland, and activity began on the new site targeting a September 1932 opening.

In March 1932, with construction going full steam, school leaders planned to mark the coming transition and perhaps heal the community with one last big gathering at the old school that would be both homecoming and forward-looking celebration. There’s no one around to ask how that went, nor any reporting that might reveal what that last evening was like, so that’s one for your imagination. Here’s the preview story:

The Oregonian, March 8, 1932

A cornerstone ceremony and time capsule placement was held at the new building on June 6, 1932 with all 500 students from Old Vernon looking on and checking out what was about to become their new school.

 

 

With school dismissed for the summer of 1932, the Portland School District had options. For the first time—with new buildings coming on line—they didn’t need to jam students into every available building space. Facility planners could contemplate the next move with properties. Bids were out for demolition of the buildings now empty on Block 54, but there was no hurry: New Vernon over on Killingsworth was ready.

Just after dark on Sunday, August 14, 1932, someone broke the glass in a basement door and let themselves into Old Vernon, ascended the stairs to the second floor, and set a fast-moving fire that lit up the night sky for miles. The three-alarm fire drew thouands of spectators and 19 engine companies. The morning newspaper was delayed to include the news. The Oregonian was swamped with calls resulting in an explanation for the delivery delay in a prominent boxed message on the paper’s front-page masthead: “Pardon Us – But our telephone exchange was swamped when the Vernon School burned.”

Front page breaking news coverage on Monday the 15th, and a follow-up story about the fire investigation on Tuesday, August 16th, tell the grim story:

The Oregonian, August 15, 1932

On Tuesday, the story had moved inside the paper to page 6 for more details on the investigation and cause:

The Oregonian, August 16, 1932

A year-long battle with the insurance company followed while the burned hulk of the building sat untouched. Originally insured for $70,000, the insurance settlement paid only $31,039.41 with underwriters arguing the building had been abandoned and that arson changed the equation. In March 1933, the board let a contract to Rose City Wrecking for $100 to demolish and haul off the remains, though the manual training building and the portable were salvaged and removed. The site was cleared by June 1933. Construction of new homes on the site began in October 1940.

Detail of an aerial photo from 1936 showing vacant Block 54 and the burn scar / footprint of old Vernon School. NE Prescott runs east-west along the bottom of the frame.

 

It’s hard to read the dozens of newspaper stories between 1908-1932 about the vibrancy of Old Vernon and what it meant to the community, and not want to slow things down a bit, to hear more from the decision makers, to ask a few more questions of the neighbors, to see what we might be able to work out on Block 54. Eventually, all of the multi-story big-barn type schools built in Portland between 1890-1915 either burned or were replaced. Neighborhoods changed, as they continue to do today.

Two time travelers still around from the Old Vernon era are nearby houses leased by the school to teach girls and boys about home economics. In our next post we’ll share photos and stories about how these houses gained national notoriety for Portland as an innovative education pioneer, and what the house can tell us today.

It’s Snowing on Deadman’s Hill

December 8, 2016 By in Alameda Park, Historic News Clippings, Memories, Neighborhood Mysteries Tags: 2 Comments

Whenever it snows, Alamedans of a certain age and desire for adventure turn to Deadman’s Hill at the top of Stuart Drive for some enjoyable downhill adventure. It’s also a reasonable time for us to remind ourselves of the dead man for whom our hill is anonymously named.

6-6-1917 Fred Jacobs PhotoFred Jacobs. The dead man behind Deadman’s Hill. From The Oregonian, June 6, 1917.

He was Fred Jacobs and his tragic death at the foot of the hill on a sunny June morning in 1917 sent shock waves through Portland’s social and real estate communities, as well as the Alameda neighborhood.

You can read our full story behind Deadman’s Hill on this earlier AH Blog post.

While you’re at it, you might check out a post we did on historic snowfall a few years back.

Stay safe out there!

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