1930s(?) Columbia River Gorge photo

[fettster]

I'm back home for Christmas and have enjoyed looking at some of the photos my grandfather collected during his years out West in the 1930s. He spent most of his time in California and Nevada working on Hoover (Boulder) Dam, but somewhere along his travels he obtained this photo of the Columbia River Gorge.

We don't have a lot of information on it, but my mother has been able to make out the following from the text on the back:

"x100 Col. Gorge & Rooster Rock
The Columbia River Highway
Copyright ?? ?? Studio
2710 Sandy Blvd Portland, Ore."

Vista House is unmistakable, and the structure at Portland Women's Forum seems to be a pretty good sized. The vantage point indicates the photo was taken from the air.

Railway

Vista House and Portland Women's Forum

[anna in boots]

Fett, those pics are so cool, love those old panoramas! It always amazes me how much the human-wrought structures change over the years and how little the natural wonders do. Thank goodness!

Speaking of which, I'm impressed your grandpa was at Boulder Dam. It's a hobby of mine researching how certain monumental structures were built and that one was a classic. What I've gleaned from documentaries is only part of the truth, I know, since it wasn't quite policy to report the whole enchilada regarding safety procedures and their outcomes. Still, the grandiose mechanics and strategic planning of the thing was amazing: first ever incidence of using a cable-pulley system to deliver and dump concrete, and that concrete is still curing to this day! Wow! Necessity really is the mother of all invention. If you've got any stories sent down from granddad, I'm all ears.

anna in boots

[fettster]

Speaking of which, I'm impressed your grandpa was at Boulder Dam. ... What I've gleaned from documentaries is only part of the truth, I know, since it wasn't quite policy to report the whole enchilada regarding safety procedures and their outcomes.

My grandfather was a high scaler, one of the guys who scaled down the canyon walls to clear rock where the dam walls would join. You can sure imagine the guidelines they had to follow wouldn't be up to OSHA standards nowadays. Off a quick search I found this little nugget:

"High Scalers had nerves of steel, but this is why many thought most of them were merely thrill-crazy. When foremen weren’t looking, they would perform death-defying stunts as entertainment of those dam workers below. They would compete to see who could swing the furthest, the highest and perform the most thrilling acts high above the canyon floor."

My brother and I had a good laugh this evening imagining grandpa sneaking one of these maneuvers in with the foreman on break, spurred on by the cheers below. Sadly I never got to meet my grandfather as he died before I was born, but the stories would have been truly remarkable I'm sure.

[anna in boots]

Fett,

I've got a DVD copied from a VHS tape taped off the Discovery Channel from a few years back that documented the real-time building of Boulder (Hoover) Dam. Called (surprise!) "The Building of the Hoover Dam," it's got sensational footage of the high scalers. Who knows? You might catch a glimpse of a relative.

I've been all over the Discovery Channel and the internet trying to find this show for you to no avail. I found an item at the Washington County Library with this description:

Title : Modern marvels. Architectural wonders [videorecording (DVD)] DVD ...
-- St. Louis Arch -- [v. 4]. The Empire State Building -- Eiffel Tower. ... [v. 1]. The Egyptian pyramids -- The Great Wall of China -- [v. 2]. Mount Rushmore -- Hoover Dam -- [v. 3]. Golden Gate Bridge ...

Publisher, Date : New York : A&E Television Networks : Distributed by New Video Group, c2007. ISBN : 0767097165 (set) - Description : 8 videodiscs (400 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in.

This could be it. There's a waiting list for it but I put it on hold, anyway. When I can get at it, I'll let you know if it's the same (or better) than what I've got.

anna in work boots

[fettster]

Thanks Anna, do let me know what you find out when you get the chance. I've seen Modern Marvels before, but don't believe I saw the ones you list.

Can anyone comment on the building centered in the second photo? I imagine it might be for timber processing.

[Cattrapper]

Can anyone comment on the building centered in the second photo? I imagine it might be for timber processing.

My guess, and it's only a guess, would be a cannery of some sort.

[Cattrapper]

Vista House is unmistakable, and the structure at Portland Women's Forum seems to be a pretty good sized. The vantage point indicates the photo was taken from the air.

Fettster, I got curious about the vantage point of your photo and was a little bored, so I spent some time playing around with google earth and here's what I came up with.

First clue, the photo was not likely taken from the air, because there's a tree branch visible in the lower right corner of the image. Second clue, in the bottom close-up, the structure which I assume you believed to be the Portland Women's Forum seems way to close to the Vista House to in fact be the Women's Forum. Also, the roadcut of the Historic Columbia River Highway is clearly visible just down hill of this second building. (Note: Please forgive my ignorance if in fact the second building is the historic location of the Portand Women's Forum and not at the present day viewpoint.)

My conclusion is that the photo was taken from Chanticleer Point, which is where the Portand Women's Forum viewpoint is located. However, I don't believe it was taken from the viewpoint, but rather further north, and down over the end of Chanticleer Point. The second structure in the bottom close-up appears to be near the end of N.E. Columbia Ave off of Larch Mountain Rd.

To check it out for yourself on google earth, bring your viewing angle down as flat as you can and facing east from the end of Chanticleer Point, and bring your elevation down to nearly ground level. If anyone knows how I can post a link to the view from google earth, please let me know.

Darin

[fettster]

My conclusion is that the photo was taken from Chanticleer Point, which is where the Portand Women's Forum viewpoint is located. However, I don't believe it was taken from the viewpoint, but rather further north, and down over the end of Chanticleer Point. The second structure in the bottom close-up appears to be near the end of N.E. Columbia Ave off of Larch Mountain Rd.

To check it out for yourself on google earth, bring your viewing angle down as flat as you can and facing east from the end of Chanticleer Point, and bring your elevation down to nearly ground level. If anyone knows how I can post a link to the view from google earth, please let me know.

Unfortunately I don't have Google Earth installed here, but visualizing a line drawn due south from Rooster Rock I can see that the large structure must be fairly close to Vista house like you said, somewhere around here. As large as that structure is I'm really curious what it is. I wonder if the original vantage point is still reachable and unobstructed?

On the earlier suggestion are you thinking a cannery for fish, or thinking the location was chosen for ease of shipping?

For a Google Earth screenshot you could try hitting the "Print Screen" key if using Windows and then opening Paint or something similar and performing a paste.

[Cattrapper]

Fettster, I figured out how to email myself JPEG images.

Here's my approximate reprodution from GE, it's not spot on, but pretty close I think.


Here's an aerial to give a better idea of where I estimate the vantage point to be.


Judging from the amount of development near the vantage point, I'd guess it's private property now. If you're thinking of trying to find the exact spot on the ground, it couldn't hurt to knock on some doors and ask permission. Unfortunately, I'm sure by now the trees have grown to a height that reproducing the photo would be pretty hard, if not impossible.

On the earlier suggestion are you thinking a cannery for fish, or thinking the location was chosen for ease of shipping?

Well, a combination of the two actually. IIRC, I've heard that there used to be a lot of fish canneries along the Columbia, back in the days when there were no regulations on the catch and they caught salmon by the thousands. Having the canneries right on the river made it easy to get the catch to the cannery and with the railroad right there as well, I'm sure it made shipping the final product quite convinent, either by river, or by rail.

Hope that helps,
Darin

[Splintercat]

Good call, Darin! I agree that it's a cannery by Rooster Rock, and that this perspective is from Chanticleer Point. In fact, I think it's from the old Chanticleer Inn, that pre-dated Women's Forum Park. Here's an early postcard photo that shows the view from the Inn -- including a Crown Point sans Vista House:



Another postcard view, this time from the air in the early 1930s, shows the Crown Point Inn, in close proximity to Crown Point:



-Tom