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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




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