A Little Known Survivor from the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition?

UPDATED 4/6/2024

A few weeks ago, I was researching buildings associated with the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition and I happened upon something that I didn't recall ever seeing before.

View of Exposition, 1905
Portland Archives & Records Center

Many Portland history nerds, like me, are aware that the vast majority of the buildings at the fair were intended to be temporary and few lasted more than a handful of months once the "Great Extravaganza" closed in the fall of 1905. 

That said, there were some known survivors: the National Cash Register building was relocated to St. Johns and has most recently been a McMenamin's for many years.

National Cash Register Building
Oregon Historical Society bb000383

Parts of the American Inn (the only hotel that was actually on the fairgrounds) were reconstructed as an apartment (now condo) building on NW Northrup Street near 21st.

American Inn, 1905
Oregon Historical Society, Org Lot 64 B3 021 

The Massachusetts Building was moved to the western flanks of Mt. Tabor and used for many years as a residence before succumbing to the wrecking ball. 

Massachusetts Building, 1905

Sights & Scenes at the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition

Then there was the fair's one building intended to be permanent; the Forestry Building stood near what we now know as Montgomery Park until it was consumed by fire in August 1964. I wrote about the Forestry Building in Lost Portland, Oregon (History Press, 2018).

Forestry Building, 1905
Oregon Historical Society ba018894

Those were all buildings that I had heard of before, so one might imagine my nerdy excitement when I stumbled upon what I am pretty sure is another building from the fair and if I'm right, it's still standing!

I had not heard this before, but the Masonic Building was also moved from the Exposition grounds and repurposed as a residence. A news report from 1905 mentions the move and 25 years later, another article notes the relocation to NW 25th and Overton and repurposing of the building as a residence.

Portland Maps notes the build date of a house at 1234 NW 25th as 1906, so my first thought was that that this house was the old Masonic Building. There are some similarities at the porch and entry and the general form of the hipped roof house matches, but as it turns out, this is not the house I was looking for.

Masonic Building, 1905
Sights & Scenes at the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition

The Masonic Building as it appeared in 1905.
Oregonian June 8, 1930

I had thought that the house at 1234 NW 25th was likely the old Masonic Bldg., but it has since been pointed out to me (Thanks! Bob C.) that there is another house nearby that is a much better match and that (although little discussed publicly) has long been thought by locals in the neighborhood to have been from the Exposition. That house is at 1209 NW 26th, near Northrup St. The street view below is pretty terrible, but you can see the windows match and older views show the porch as a match.

Google street view of 1209 NW 26th

So it appears we can say there is definitely another survivor from the 1905 Exposition, the closest thing Portland has ever had to a World's Fair. Here's a link to the full Google Street View.

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Portland's Missing "Monstrosity"

Oregon Journal 2/5/1939

80 years ago, a stone monument, dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt and the memory of the Spanish American War, was moved from its home near the Hawthorne Bridge during a massive realignment of Front Avenue. What became of the monument remains a mystery and is subject to some speculation. With ongoing discussions about what to do with Portland's other Theodore Roosevelt statue (among others), and what seems like never ending work to realign and re-shape Naito Parkway (formerly Front Avenue), it seemed like a good time to take a look at this story and who knows? Maybe someone out there can shed new light on Portland's missing "Monstrosity".

The United Spanish War Veterans (USWV), a group founded by veterans of the Spanish-American War of 1898-1899 as well as veterans from the subsequent Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, began raising funds in the mid-1920s for a monument to honor the memory of those who fought in the wars and Theodore Roosevelt for the leadership role he played in both. Initially, the plan was to build a monument at Battle Rock in Port Orford on the southern Oregon coast, but when the decommissioned and much beloved Battleship Oregon was loaned by the Navy to the State of Oregon, with the intent of creating a museum in its honor, the focus for a new monument shifted to the Portland area.

In September 1938, the USWV held its annual convention in Portland. This created the opportunity to finally bring their dream to fruition. Not only did the USWV finally get a monument, they got an entire park on land just south of the Hawthorne Bridge. The Oregon was subsequently moored adjacent to the park after having spent several years near the east end of the Broadway Bridge. While in Portland, the USWV celebrated the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, dedicating the new Battleship Oregon Memorial Park, while also joining with the City in renaming Belmont Park as Colonel Summers Park.

The USWV commissioned University of Oregon art professor and sculptor Oliver L. Barrett to create the monument for the new park. Barrett was well respected. A decade earlier he created the Rebecca at the Well sculpture that remains part of the Shemanski Fountain in Portland’s South Park Blocks.

Aerial view of Battleship Memorial Park c.1939, courtesy of Portland Archives & Records Center

Barrett completed the new monument project in early 1939. With a 14 foot tall statue on a stepped, circular base that added another 4 feet in height, the new sculpture was unlike anything else in conservative 1930s Portland. According to Barrett, the statue was never meant to look like Theodore Roosevelt or anyone, for that matter, but, was "an attempt to symbolize his indomitable spirit - fighting but constructive." On one side of the monument was an actual likeness of Roosevelt and an inscription that read "Our nation holds in its hands the fate of the coming years." Barrett's design held some similarities with the St. Julien Canadian Memorial from 1923. Barrett could have easily been familiar with this much larger monument in Belgium honoring Canadian soldiers from the First World War.

Postcard showing the completed Battleship Oregon Memorial Park in 1940 found here

In 1940, voters approved a massive plan to redevelop and realign Front Avenue, putting the new park in jeopardy, while the old battleship was moored nearby operating as a museum. Redevelopment of Front began in 1941. Knowing that the statue would have to be moved, even temporarily, those that didn't like it began talking about replacing the Roosevelt monument with a relocated Skidmore Fountain. Although mentioned on multiple occasions, the idea of relocating Skidmore Fountain did not get much support in City Hall. Over the summer of 1941, nearby buildings along Front Avenue, like the turreted Witch Hazel which stood at Front and Madison near the foot of the Hawthorne Bridge, were taken down as part of the redevelopment project. And by early November 1941, less than three years after it was installed, workers had dismantled the park and begun preparing to move the Roosevelt monument.

Promotional pamphlet for Front Avenue redevelopment project, 1940. Courtesy of Dan Haneckow.

Editorial from The Oregonian 10/20/1941

Newspaper accounts note that the plan was to store that monument (sans its stepped base) in the City's Stanton Street warehouse until such time that a new home could be procured. Workers were pictured prepping the statue for relocation, but by all accounts it either never made it to the warehouse or was disposed of from that location at a later date. It's not until 1972, that the monument get some attention again in an Oregonian article that tried to shed some light on the subject, but ultimately leaves one wondering. Today, the Portland Police Memorial in Waterfront Park lies very near where the Roosevelt monument once stood.

Oregonian 11/6/1941

It is entirely possible that the missing monument lies in pieces underneath Naito Parkway or that portion of Waterfront Park that is adjacent to the Hawthorne Bridge. It could also have ended up somewhere else, but we may never know. Barrett likely knew what happened, but he died suddenly in 1943 at the age of 50.

Meanwhile, the Battleship Oregon was partially dismantled then repurposed as an ammunition barge during the Second World War, before it was finally scrapped in 1956. That same year, the ship's mast became a memorial in what is now Waterfront Park. The museum that for a time operated out of the old battleship, relocated to a house at Northeast 12th & Clackamas Street. When the house was demolished for the construction of Lloyd Center, the museum folded and its collection was donated to the Oregon Historical Society. There is still an effort ongoing to save the original smokestacks and anchor from from the ship.

For more on the story of the missing monument, there are a few other stories online:

Here's one from OregonLive and one from Cafe Unknown

The Charles and Hedwig Smith House aka the Multnomah County Hospital

Doug Kenck-Crispin's insightful Willamette Week article about Portland during the 1918 flu pandemic, reminded me about what was then the Multnomah County Hospital, located in present day Lair Hill Park. Below is an excerpt from my book, Lost Portland Oregon, about the house-turned-hospital.

Charles and Hedwig Smith Residence

Charles and Hedwig Smith House after it was acquired by Multnomah County, circa 1909. Oregon Health & Science University, Historical Collections & Archives.

Lair Hill Park, located between Southwest Second and Barbur Boulevard, between Hooker and Woods Streets, is a small city park, with a former public library in one corner and a building from 1918 that used to serve as a residence for nurses, in another. The nurses’ building is a clue to what once stood in the park a century ago: a mansion turned hospital.

Charles E. Smith was one of the city’s largest employers before the turn of the twentieth century. His Smith Brothers and [later] Watson Iron Works Company produced ornamental and structural cast iron for buildings, steam boilers for ships, and mining equipment, selling their wares all over the world. Their foundry stood along the river, just south of the Hawthorne Bridge, in the area known as Riverplace today.

In 1885, Charles Smith and his wife Hedwig hired Justus F. Krumbein to design a new house for them. By this time, Krumbein was at the height of his architectural career, finishing work on the Kamm Block while designing houses for other noted Portlanders, including one in northwest Portland for Levi and Henrietta White. The Smith house was finished around the end of 1886, and was indicative of Krumbein’s residential designs from that period. The three-story house had a large corner tower and the ornate exterior woodwork, much of which was made of durable Port Orford cedar, included finials, brackets, turned columns, and a variety of spindlework on the wide front porch. On the interior, many of the walls and ceilings were hand painted, with cherubs, flowers, and a variety of imagery. One room in particular was later noted for its “mystic oriental designs.”[1]

The Smiths lived in the house until around 1909 when they sold the house and property to Multnomah County so they could turn it into a new hospital. This was not the first grand old Portland house reused in such a manner. The White house had become a private sanatorium only a few years earlier. By the time they sold the house to the county, Charles Smith had been in poor health for many years. He died in 1912, around the time that Hedwig and son-in-law Charles Schnabel, were overseeing completion of their new investment, the Congress Hotel at Southwest Sixth and Main.

The new Multnomah County Hospital, in the refurbished house, opened in 1912. Never really considered a long-term solution to the need for a new hospital, within a few years of opening, there were cries that it was inadequate and possibly a firetrap.[2] In the meantime, Multnomah County was beginning to consider a move to the top of Marquam Hill, more or less overlooking the Smith house hospital site in South Portland. In 1916, the University of Oregon Medical School offered a piece of land on their hilltop property to the county.

In August 1923, the first patients moved into the new county hospital on Marquam Hill. The demolition of the Smith House-Multnomah County Hospital began only a couple of months later. Meanwhile, at the northern end of the property a new Carnegie funded library branch neared completion. In 1927, the remaining property where the Smith house once stood became Lair Hill Park.

---

[1] “County Hospital Historic Building,” Oregonian, September 9, 1923.

[2] “New Hospital Need Told,” Oregonian, November 18, 1914.

Lost Portland, Oregon Outtake: The Bickel Family House

Bickel Family House c.1971. Photo by George McMath. Courtesy of the Architectural Heritage Center.

Located at Southwest Vista Avenue and Park Place, the 1890 Bickel Family House is one of three lost buildings from that intersection.

Frederick Bickel made his fortune in partnership with Frank Dekum. Their Portland confectionery business began around 1853, when the pair arrived in the young city. They had first worked together as apprentices in a similar business in St. Louis, Missouri before heading west. Bickel & Dekum provided baked goods, many made with locally sourced fruit. Bickel & Dekum remained in partnership until the end of 1878, when Frank Dekum retired.

By the 1880s, Bickel was dabbling in real estate investment and development. He had at least two different buildings built in downtown during this time, including the 1888 Bickel Block, still standing at the corner of Northwest Naito Parkway and Couch. That building is now part of the University of Oregon’s White Stag Block campus.

Built for a cost of $14,000, the Bickel house was unique for the variety of architectural elements it displayed, perhaps most of all its onion-domed dormers. Members of the Bickel family lived in the house until 1969. The last resident was Carolyn Bickel, Frederick Bickel’s daughter. She lived in the house until she died at the age of 104. The following year, the house was sold to developers who demolished it in May 1971, much to the dismay of local preservationists.

Visualization Map of Lost Portland, Oregon

I've heard from several people that it would be helpful to have a map with points that correspond to the stories in Lost Portland, Oregon. Here is a basic map with all of the lost places in the book denoted with a white star within a black circle. I hope you find this useful as you read the book! I will add images to these points as I am able.


 

Lost Portland, Oregon in the News

In this view from early 1892, you are looking south on SW 6th from Washington St. The Hibernian Building is front and center, the Oregonian Tower anchors the other end of the block - note that it hasn't yet had the clock installed in its tower. Also in the distance is the peaked roof of the Marquam Building and beyond that the Portland Hotel. All are featured in Lost Portland, Oregon. Image courtesy of the Architectural Heritage Center.

My new book Lost Portland, Oregon has received a couple of interesting mentions in the news of late. This OregonLive article mentions the book in the context of 25 lost Portland buildings and includes images as well. There was also this recent letter to the editor which received quite a few comments. I'm working on scheduling additional book -related events in the coming months, so stay tuned to this page for more details.

My New Book: Lost Portland, Oregon

About 18 months after this project started, I am excited to announce publication of my book, Lost Portland, Oregon (History Press, December 2018)!

On Sunday, December 2, I will be at the Oregon Historical Society for their annual Holiday Cheer author event. I'll also be at Powell's City of Books on Thursday, December 13, followed by a presentation and book signing at the Architectural Heritage Center on Saturday, December 15.

From the book cover:

"As Portland has grown and changed, so has its architectural landscape. Once prominent landmarks have disappeared--the Marquam Building collapsed during 1912 renovations, the massive Chamber of Commerce building became a parking lot and the Corbett Building became a shopping mall. The city skyline was shaped by architects like Justus F. Krumbein and David L. Williams, only to drastically change in the face of urban renewal and the desire for modernization. Discover the stories behind some of Portland's most iconic buildings, including the Beth Israel Synagogue and the first East Side High School, both lost to fire."


Through 50+ stories of buildings and places that once graced the Portland landscape, I hope to shed light on how the city has changed, for better or worse, and the forces behind that change.

Contact me, if you have any questions about the book or are interested in having me speak about Lost Portland to your group or organization.