A beautiful hand-tinted photograph overlooking the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition. This view looks almost east and the major buildings in the center are (from left to right) Oriental Palace, Foreign Palace and the gold-domed Agriculture and Horticulture building. The High Victorian Italianate home in the lower right is the extant Alexander B. and Anna Balch Hamilton house at 2725 NW Savier, built circa 1890. Here’s a map of the expo grounds.
(University of Oregon Libraries)
Tags: Guild's Lake, Oregon, Portland
October 4, 2012 at 8:11 am
Great picture! But doesn’t this look more north than east, however (N-NE I’d say). The long fence seen bordering the fairgrounds is on the north side of Upshur and it thus running due east-west.
Also, the red-roofed house on the far right about 1/4 of the way up (on this side of the fence — not the one the fairgrounds) is also still there at 2752 NW Upshur.
October 4, 2012 at 9:18 am
Awesome photo. I have never seen the Centennial grounds shot from this angle before. No jokes, I could look at photos of the Expo all day. Thank you for posting this!
October 4, 2012 at 9:29 am
Beautiful! Thanks for posting.
October 4, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Just wanted to say this is the greatest blog about pdx. Love seeing the old sites.
October 4, 2012 at 6:17 pm
The Forestry Building was, I believe, the only Expo building still standing burned before I ever got a chance to see it.
There are so few reminders of this beautiful event today.
I have a wonderful (warn) souvenir book from the fair.
October 4, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Agree with you Eric! Chuck, the McMenamin’s Pub in St John’s is the National Cash Register Bldg. Also, my husband’s big Irish family had a beautiful home at 24th and Wilson. Now gone!
I never realized how close it was to the Exposition.
October 5, 2012 at 12:27 pm
The Fairmont Hotel (Apartments) are still standing. Although not a part of the actual Expo, they were built near the grounds (1920 NW 26th) specifically for the event:
http://beamdevelopment.com/location/historic-fairmont-hotel
October 5, 2012 at 2:23 pm
I’m glad to see that the old Fairmont is still standing. I used to live on NW 25th & Upshur. The hotel was a rundown apartment building at the time (1969-70) but we were aware that it had been built to accommodate fairgoers.
October 9, 2012 at 1:24 am
When I was in elementary school we did a field trip to the Forestry Center. A really amazing place. It was so sad when it burned. I lived on the edge of Rocky Butte and we could see the smoke from there – it could be seen all over Portland. But as I recall that summer was very hot, with no rain. That day it burned was really hot – likely in the 90s.
October 12, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Here’s a view of the interior of the Forestry Center.
http://oregondigital.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/archives&CISOPTR=302&CISOBOX=1&REC=18
The feeling one got was of being in a old growth forest as this view illustrates
February 4, 2013 at 4:33 pm
My Great-granduncle, Charles Camp, had a large exhibit in the Palace of Agriculture representing Wyoming. He had photographs, stereopticons and silver nitrate films of cattle round-ups, irrigation systems and bucking bronco exhibitions as well as other related items illustrating life on the Wyoming plains.
Charles stayed at 367 20th Street while he built and ran his exhibit. We have a metal coin that he had stamped with the address. His wife stayed at a boarding house on Savier street during the Expo. We also have the medal he received for his exhibit.
Chuck, does your souvenir book have any interior shots of the Palace of Agriculture? Have you scanned the pages and posted them anywhere online? I paid the OHS for a scan of the Camp exhibit. It is from a small booklet and the off set printing dots don’t allow for much detail.