Tag Archives: Paulson

1913 photos reveal new perspective at Gravelly Hill – 33rd and Fremont

December 13, 2024 By in Alameda Park, Old Photos, Photo Detective, Research Tags: , , , , , 23 Comments

Every now and then in my research, I’ll find something—a memory, photograph, map or  document—that really sticks with me and defines the way I think about a place.

This month I found a batch of mis-identified photographs when searching at City of Portland Archives that resulted in an absolute jackpot from 1913, opening a fresh window into the past near NE 33rd and Fremont.

Once known as Gravelly Hill, the area was indeed a gravel pit for many years in the late 1800s, and later the repository for all of the eastside’s household garbage between 1923-1924, then known as the Fremont Sanitary Landfill.

But before the landfill, back in 1910 as subdivisions crowded in around the big pit, questions were raised about the basic stability of Fremont Street, which was just below the brow of the Alameda ridge and ran right along the north edge of the pit. Developer Benjamin Lombard, who platted the adjacent Olmsted Park about that time, even sued the city for violating its own ordinance about gravel pits.

So, no secret: that slope South of Fremont was a gravel pit.

But as it turns out, it wasn’t just a gravel pit. It was a GIANT gravel pit. See for yourself:

You’ll want to click into this for a good look. Looking east along Fremont toward NE 33rd from about today’s NE 32nd Avenue. Sewer pipe stacked along the eastern edge of NE 33rd, which slopes downhill left to right. The roof of the house visible at treeline in the center is the Barnes Mansion, 3533 NE Klickitat, which was then brand new. City Archives Photo: A2009.009-3611 (mislabeled as Lombard Street)

In 1913, a photographer for the Department of Public Works visited the pit and brought back 11 amazing images that got buried in the archives. They’re large-format glass plate negatives, not prints, and for years have been filed away in envelopes under “Lombard Street” at City Archives. I suspect few people have ever seen them. A few weeks back, something else I was looking for led me to these glass negatives.

I photographed each plate and made positive prints to be able to better visualize the scenes. And as I studied that first picture and figured out it wasn’t showing Lombard Street, but Fremont Street, I knew this would be a find to remember.

After that first photo, there were these next two, clearly taken as a pair, to illustrate the depth and breadth of the pit. Both are unquestionably tied to the Gravelly Hill landscape. Here I’ve melded them together to create a single image:

Looking north into the gravel pit at NE 33rd and Fremont, December 1913. Click to enlarge. View would be from between today’s Siskiyou and Klickitat streets, looking uphill. The house at far left is today’s 3251 NE Alameda Terrace. The house at far right is the top of today’s 3305 NE Alameda. A sign is visible at upper right for a new subdivision, placed in the cutbank on the northeast corner of 33rd and Fremont. Segments of sewer pipe are visible stacked there. Today, the pit is filled with three city blocks and more than 50 homes. City archives photos, left: A2009.009.3619; right: A2009.009.3620.

Here’s a bit more context from neighborhood historian R.A. Paulson, writing in The Community Press on October 1, 1975:

“From the earliest recollections of those familiar with the area, this was a worked out gravel pit, the excavation of which had been finished many years before but still showing the signs of one-time activity. As late as 1919 and 1920, the pit formed a precipice going down sharply from near Fremont possibly 100 feet or so to the level of Klickitat and extending between 32nd place and 33rd Ave. Coming from the west, Kllickitat Street was unpaved east of about 29th with the cement sidewalks ending there but even between 26th and 29th these sidewalks were impassable because of the overgrown bushes and small trees.


“The gravel pit had been a lush source of rock and gravel for someone way back and the solid bank of this material had originally sloped down from Fremont at the same grade as the present 33rd Ave. This had been scooped out over a period of perhaps 50 years or more and most likely went into improving the lanes, roadways and public highways for miles around, certainly for the country roads that became 33rd Ave. and Fremont Street.


“The bed of the pit showed evidence that work and even habitation had gone on there but at the time of World War 1, only a monolith of stone, too difficult to remove with pick and shovel, reared upward from the new level.”

Here’s a detail from a 1925 aerial photo that shows the extent of the pit and the still-forming street infrastructure. The pit covered two-plus blocks, from NE 33rd to NE 31st, between Fremont and Klickitat.

Detail from a 1925 aerial photo showing the intersection of Fremont and 33rd, labels added for reference. Dashed lines indicate eventual location of NE 32nd Place and NE 32nd Avenue. Click to enlarge. Aerial photo courtesy of City of Portland Archives.

Stay tuned for eight other gems in this collection that are just as knock-your-socks-off amazing as these three. Next up: we’ll take a close look at the intersection of NE 33rd and Fremont 111 years ago, absolutely recognizable to today’s eye.

Dairy & Orchards in the heart of Alameda | The Homedale Tract

December 9, 2018 By in Alameda Park, Historic News Clippings, History Walks, Maps, Neighborhood History, The Plats Tags: , , , , , , , , , 15 Comments

Homedale is the name of the property plat—once part of an orchard and dairy—that occupies the landscape bounded roughly by Fremont and Ridgewood, between NE 19th and NE 24th. Today, it’s considered part of the Alameda neighborhood. Here’s a look at the geography.

Detail from the Homedale Plat, filed in 1921. Click to enlarge.

Think of a plat as a road map filed by developers for organizing property into individual lots and streets (read more about the relationship between plats and neighborhoods here). We all live somewhere in a plat and each has its own unique story, players and moment in history. We’ve created a category here on the blog (The Plats) to hold our ongoing exploration of these stories.

While today it’s an orderly grid of streets and homes dating from 1922, less than 100 years ago the sloping landscape just below Alameda ridge that you see here was an important part of Portland’s eastside agriculture. We’ve come across several interesting descriptions that will feed your curiosity and the way you think about this landscape. Read on, from local resident Rod Paulson written in January 1976:

“Before 1921 and 1922 when city lots were staked out, much of this was an apple orchard, the remnants of which can still be seen in some back yards. The trees grew right down to the edge of the Fremont Street [side]walk and there were several old buildings on the place, residential and otherwise, including a large farmhouse painted light brown which was located close to Fremont in the vicinity of 21st Avenue. This house dated back to the 1890s or before and people lived there in apparent comfort in a rural setting, yet in the midst of modern houses that [were being built] in all directions.”

“There was another farmhouse set back a considerable distance from the street more or less in the eastern part of the orchard, and a barn was situated opposite the end of 23rd Avenue.”

We’ve wondered about this: are isolated apple trees from the early orchard days still out there scattered across this part of the neighborhood? Can any readers confirm? In a happy coincidence, the Sabin Community Association has planted a small orchard of young trees near NE 19th and Mason, on ground that probably once was part of the old orchard:

The once and future orchard, near NE 19th and Mason, December 2018.

Owners Michael G. Munley and James T. Barron bought the future Homedale property in 1905 for $6,500 and kept it in agricultural use with an eye to eventual development, but market conditions didn’t make that worthwhile until the 1920s. Not coincidentally, Munley was son-in-law of E.Z. Ferguson, president of the Alameda Land Company which owned land just up the hill. Barron was a Ferguson business partner.

The Irvington Dairy operated from a barn situated at the northeast corner of NE 21st and Fremont from the 1890s until 1916 when a catastrophic fire destroyed much of the herd and the barn.

From the Oregon Journal, January 11, 1916. The address given–725 Fremont–is from Portland’s old addressing system and translates into the NE corner of 21st and Fremont. We did not find a follow-up news story about the fire investigation. The house remembered by Rod Paulson was home to dairy manager Grimm and his family.

Location of the former Irvington Dairy barn at NE 21st and Fremont, looking northeast, December 2018.

Between the terrible fire and an early 1920s resurgence in Portland’s real estate values, the time was nearing when Munley and Barron would execute the land use change and end the property’s agricultural past. In 1919, the Grimms and dairyman E.J. Bruns were selling off the last of the Munley herd:

From The Oregonian, March 30, 1919

A nearby dairy existed just to the east as well: the Pearson Place, the cow pasture where Alameda School was eventually built. The Pearson family operated their dairy there during this same time period and it too was subdivided into residential lots about the same time. You can read more about the Pearson Dairy and its time-traveling tree here (and we recommend putting on your walking shoes and your imagination to walk the perimeter of the farm).

Six years after the big fire at NE 21st and Fremont, Munley and Barron were underway with their plan to develop the property:

From The Oregonian, March 12, 1922

By the fall of 1922, the streets of Homedale had been carved into the south-facing slopes and the first homes had been built. Real estate ads even mentioned without explaining why that most lots had a fruit tree (but no mention of cows).

Interesting to note that prior to 1922, Regents Drive did not go all the way through to NE 21st because the orchard and open fields were in the way. Regents came down the hill and tee’d into NE 24th before heading south. Think of that next time you drive down Regents headed for NE 21st: the former orchard and pasture land you’re driving through.

If you’ve read this far, you deserve the reward of one of our all-time favorite news stories from that time illustrating the consequence of this early day change of land use from agriculture to residential (a subject that bears exploration in future posts). Dixon Place is the next subdivision to the west just a few blocks over, between Fremont to Shaver and from NE 15th to NE 19th, part of today’s Sabin neighborhood. What a great headline:

From The Oregonian, May 3, 1923

Dairies like the one at NE 21st and Fremont–and many more small dairies around town–occupied a unique niche in time as Portland grew between 1890 and the 19-teens. As population and growth exploded and property became more valuable for housing, the departure of the dairies was a bellwether of change. More from the front lines of subdivision-dairy conflict here. It’s a fascinating story.