Skip to main content

A New Leaf



The Portland Waterfront History website has been remodeled two or three times over the years, but last night I uploaded an entirely new version. This one is intended to be easy to use, mobile friendly, and captivating. It has new image galleries with over 240 large images, a timeline designed for easy additions and corrections, and a section for video. The images are from my personal collection. I admit that lot of these image are from postcards, not the highest definition, but I think even the hand colored ones have a certain nostalgic charm, and oftentimes they are the only images available from the time period. I hope you enjoy the new site, and please, don't hesitate to send me suggestions or additions. My whole existence is a work in progress, so I don't mind having errors pointed out, or new ideas suggested to me in a helpful manner.

A Note to my North Portland and Saint Johns friends:  The Multnomah County Library has asked me to give a series of talks on the subject of Portland's lost waterfront. They titled the series "Salty Dogs and Shanghai Tunnels" so I suppose I will have to discuss Portland's favorite fakelore. The first of thee will be:  

Wednesday, March 20, 2013 6:45 pm
St. Johns Library, Meeting Room


I must say, I am looking forward to talking about my favorite subject, so I hope someone shows up, or I will feel kind of silly.

Here are some links to the new pages. Here is a hint: if it looks funny its because you have some of the old page stuck in your browser cache--so hit the "Refresh" button and all will be well.

Landing Page (Home)

Photographs

Video




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Word on Shanghai Tunnels - Including 14 reasons why the stories are bogus

I have never been on a tour of Portland's so-called "shanghai tunnels," so I am unable to comment on this attraction, except that I have heard that the tour is quite entertaining. Neither have I been to the Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland,  the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, or the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, for that matter. The closest I have come to this sort of tourist entertainment was while visiting the ancient city of York I took my family on the "York Ghost Walk." This tour is a bit of innocent fun with some old ghost stories mixed in with distorted history—just for the tourists.  It may be true that I have no experience with the tourist tours of these basements in the northwest regions of downtown, but I do know a bit about them. There is a great deal of documentation in the newspapers, and in old court records. They were built by Chinese back in the days when Chinatown was the center of gang activity related to the different tongs...

The Steel Bridge and the Railroad

I don’t know if anyone has noticed this, but the Steel Bridge on old postcards is often designated as being owned by any one of three different companies. Most often you will see the words “O.W.R. & N. Co. Bridge across the Willamette,” or something to that effect. Other times the card might read, “O. R. R. & N. Co. bridge, Portland, Oregon.” Then, on occasion, a card might say, “Union Pacific bridge, Portland, Oregon.” This was confusing to me at one time, until I read a little something on the history of the Union Pacific lines in the west, then I became even more confused. The lines were in and out of receivership, leased, sold, given different, but very similar names, and called different names by different levels of railroad hierarchy. When the first Steel Bridge was built in 1888 the company behind the construction was the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company (O. R. & N. Co.), an old and powerful entity that had evolved from the Oregon Steam Navigation Company...

The Turks in California Part 1

Where it all took place, the little dot to the left is the first house of Jackson In the early evening of twilight of a dank November in 1869 the activity along the "city's front" consisted of the usual howling drunks and raucous laughter. It was a region that had been San Francisco's no-man's land for decades. Not long before it had worn the name "Sydney Town" in honor of the Irish criminals drawn to California from Australia at the news of gold. Instead of "digging in the harmless earth" themselves, these boys had found it easier, and more profitable, to relieve the heavy burden of gold from those miners who wandered the streets of the city in search of pleasure. "Sydney ducks," was the derisive name the Americans gave them, but they set about beating the Americans at their own game. Democracy was made for such as they. It was simple enough to elect their own sheriffs and judges by stuffing ballot boxes and using threats and vio...