To the legions of fans of Powell’s City of Books store, this is a very familiar intersection. Looking southwest, West Burnside angles off to the right, while SW 10th crosses the bottom left of the photo. Fortunately, most of what we see here still exists. See another view of this location from a different vantage point here.
(City of Portland Archives)
Tags: books, History, Hotel Treves, Pacific Coat Company, Portland, Powell's, Western Auto Supply
September 9, 2010 at 6:54 am
In the 60′s this corner was famous for the dj’s who broadcast in the window for KISN radio.
September 10, 2010 at 7:50 am
Interesting that Oak was once two-way in the little diagonal cut there.
Anybody recognize the logo on the car dealership sign at extreme right?
September 10, 2010 at 11:28 am
That’s a hard one, Tad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.
September 12, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Portland currently encourages buildings to have entries onto the sidewalk, rather than the parking lot. Interesting that in 1939 even Western Auto had their store face the sidewalk, not the parking lot. This site is undergoing another renovation, to become Super Supplements (vitamins?), with more parking lot landscaping, walkways through the parking lot for pedestrians (I guess they couldn’t just move the door back to Oak St.), and perhaps a wider sidewalk on 10th. Note that there are wide sidewalks on Burnside, that would be narrowed a few years later to convert Burnside to 4 lanes.
September 12, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Tad, I’m pretty sure the sign is Wentworth-Irwin. They had a Nash dealership at 1005 W. Burnside. Wentworth-Irwin has quite a history in Portland, they were makers of custom truck bodies as well as auto dealers.