Portland's Lost Waterfront

A photo I took of T5 from a water taxi while doing stowage area exams on ships anchored in the Columbia In my book, "Portland's Lost Waterfront," I have a section devoted to the O. R. & N., Pacific Coast Grain Elevator System, often called the "great grain pipe." This was a system of grain elevators following the rail lines up the Columbia River basin, with tendrils reaching out as far as Idaho . Today this system is duplicated in many ways by the Japanese owned, Columbia Grain International, a company with elevators reaching as far as North Dakota . Since the 1970s this company has operated the gargantuan Terminal 5 grain elevator near the mouth of the Willamette. This one grain elevator is responsible for a large percentage of Oregon's total exports, and a surprisingly large percentage of the entire nation's wheat exports.   This industrial giant pulls grain from hundreds of railcars each day—up its whirring and rattling ...

 The story of Portland's ferries is one that deserves at least a small book filled with attractive photographs and engaging anecdotes gleaned from the newspapers of yesteryear. I know a little about the subject, enough to know it is interesting, and deserves some attention. It is especially interesting how the ferry operators fought to keep bridges off the river, and were able to do so for many years. Photos may be hard to come by for such a book. I haven't looked into the OHS archives, but I have been looking at river photos for many years, and from what I see, photographs of Portland ferries are few and far between. From peering over Sanborn maps I know there was once a method of ferrying railcars across the river near the Steel Bridge, but I have yet to see a photograph. Here are my best two pictures.  The first is the W. S. Mason, the Albina Ferry ferryboat that operated for many years between a landing on the lower west side next to Mersey Dock to the foo...

You've seen the bumper sticker, "Keep Portland Weird," now you can delve into the history of Portland's unique weirdness. My friend, J.D. Chandler, a man of mystery  (who will soon have a book published retelling some of Portland's grizzliest grisliest  murders) has started a blog for the purpose of chronicling Portland's past deviations from the status quo. The blog is named, simply WEIRD PORTLAND, found at this link. I am honored to have been asked to add a post--so, blowhard that I am, I pontificated on one of my pet peeves, something that has become an unnecessary mystery, Shanghai Dock. I guarantee it will no longer be a mystery to the reader who finishes the post, so this is a spoiler alert. I also took the opportunity to share a parodical (I hope that is the right word) map of the infamous and non-existent "Shanghai Tunnels" with the readers of that post. For the purpose of propagation (in hopes that ridicule will somewhat stem the floo...