Pittmon Map Co. of Portland has been publishing maps since 1907. They published this finely detailed street map of the Portland area in 1946.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland
Pittmon Map Co. of Portland has been publishing maps since 1907. They published this finely detailed street map of the Portland area in 1946.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
Wow! Any chance we can get it at higher resolution?
It sure is interesting to see the layout of some of Portland’s old neighborhoods before the 1-5, Banfield, and 405 wiped them out!
Kind of interesting to note there was a golf course on the south side of Sullivan’s Gulch at about 12th or so. My dad remembered that some time back and I thought he was nuts. Now it turns out he was also probably right about the amphitheater, in a 1933 panorama there is what looks like one on the south side ofthe gulch just east of Grand? is it that runs north? Hard to see but a semi circular looking something on the side of the hill there.
By the way, were the east side streets ever alphabetical? I am looking for the M. E. Church South, which I understand was on the east side according to the listings on an old panorama at I & 9th?
This map is also notable for showing Vanport (section F1) during its brief five-year existence.
I can see my house from here (house = lot). 😉
Wouldn’t it be incredible if you could “Google Earth” this time period, or even further back to Portland’s humble beginnings as Stumptown? It would be a wonderful tool for historians and history buffs.
Some has made a virtual “Forbidden City” so that you can walk around in it as it was long ago. Pretty interesting. Someone could make a virtual Portland, at least pretty comprehensively the downtown, NW and some of Irvington area that people could “walk” around in. Way beyond my abilities but maybe VP has a fan that could?
I dabble in 3D modeling and animation, and I’ve thought about making this my major side project. I have previously modeled several Victorian homes from cities other than Portland; The Mallory-Neely Mansion, from Memphis Tenn. and an anonymous, huge Second-Empire house in Hamilton, Ontario.
I’ve also modeled the Mosier-creek bridge, in Mosier Oregon, and am currently working on a version of the St. John’s bridge, here in Portland.
I’ve seriously thought about modeling the Knapp House, and much of the Nineteenth St. area. I’d love to try to duplicate the vantage-point of that
wonderful 1888 lithograph and animate the scene.
Ah, Lambert Gardens is still on the map! Of course, it went away before I was even born. Let alone before I made it to Portland…
Some other interesting stuff around my way. Powell & 36th-ish, “The Children’s Home?”
I see the trolley coach route is marked along Gladstone and down to Woodstock, among other lines. At least, I’m guessing that’s what those lines are? Interesting to see the route the precursor to today’s 75 bus line took through Laurelhurst back then…
That home on Powell is the Waverly Childrens Home, Portland’s version of an orphanage. ALso called the Waverly Baby Home. It’s sort of a conglomeration of different agencies started up anything from about 150 years ago to much later. They also care for disturbed children, I think the cutoff age is 12. I think the actual street address is like 3550 SE Woodward.
The Lambert Gardens were around until the early 1970’s and then became some high life condo’s called The Habitat. There also used to be a psychiatric Hospital over near 13th & Umatilla during that era. I don’t recall when it closed.
Notice that 82nd actually connected up to Marine Dr. then, but you couldn’t get there from here sort of. You had to get off of the southern section of 82nd and get onto Columbia to reconnect to the Lombard extension and 82nd. You can still see some evidence of it in the service roads at the eastern end of the airport off of Marine. 82nd used to run just east of the eastern most set of landing lights! Pretty exciting when you were on the road and planes came in! Also, if you see the circular markings on the eastern end of the miap saying 7 miles, 8 miles: you will find an Eleven Mile St. in Gresham and (used to be) Twelve Mile Corner where they had a famous store called Zim’s 12 Mile that was there for a zillion years at the corner of Stark and 223rd. They were named for their distance from a measuring point in Portland. As a matter of fact, the house address and streets clear out to almost Sandy on the east and into Clackamas on the south are based on the Portland map grid. You can find almost any address in Portland fairly easily if you know these things…If you are on a numbered street, the house numbers will tell you how far north or south of Burnside you are. 100 for each block. If your address is 1536 SE 50th, you will be 15 blocks south of Burnside on 50th. If you are on a named street in the older parts of Portland, they run east and west and in NE and NW & SW & SE are number of blocks from the Willamette River, mostly. 10th is 10 blocks from the river and streets crossing it would have house numbers like 1035, etc. The exception to this is N. Portland, It is numbered E & W off of Williams Ave. Note that all address on S and E sides of streets are even and on N & W side are odd. Also, on the east side of town, streets like Cts and Circuses and Lanes, etc. would be east of the actual numbered street on the east side and west of the street on the west side of town. Same with similar named streets north and south. This may bore all you to death, I hope not, knowing this makes it much easier to locate things.
I recall the mile posts leaving Portland, two that seem to have gone missing in the last few years. One was at Miller paint on SE Grand that seemed to be hit by a car and was not replaced.
The other was near the east side of I-205 and Washington st by Elmers pancake house. It went missing when they expanded the light rail line.
If they are somewhere I have not seen them.
Check out the Portland Columbia Airport. Just hop onto NE 47th, out to NE Bridgeton Road (aka Marine Drive) and you can hop on a DC-3 to Yakima.
Here’s neat pictures too:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5097297/
There has been a milepost restoration project going on, they have a web site. I know they said the MP at the Lone Pine Cemetery is still there.
Roxanne-The Waverly program was located off of Woodward. It and other Children’s non-profit programs merged in the early to mid 2000’s to forum Trillium Family Services. The program that is located off of Powell is the Perry Center for Children. It too was an orphanage and it’s current mission is to care for mentally ill and emotionally disturbed youth. Currently it runs the state hospital unit for children under the age of 12. It also houses mentally ill teens. Trillium also runs The Children’s Farm Home, located between Albany and Corvallis.
Roxanne-was this the website your talking about regarding the restoration of the mile markers? http://starkstreetmarkers.blogspot.com/
They must have moved the one by Elmers
because the light rail is there now.
Their was a marker at pine and grand on the corner near the light pole, until a years or so ago. I know because I have been going to Miller paint for decades.
I while back it looked like a car hit it and it was in pretty bad shape
The mile marker near Elmers is still there. its on the east side of the Elmers. Do you have info on the marker at pine and grand?
bailey, thanks for the link to the great photos of the old Portland-Columbia Airport! I’m somewhat of a fan of airport and aviation history and I would love to get those or others in higher resolution if anyone knows where I might find them.
In the photo second from the top, the two buildings in the foreground are still in existence and are the only two buildings remaining from the old airport. The large “United Air Lines” hangar stood until the mid to late 70’s at least. I remember as a child passing by what looked like a giant white barn on Marine Dr. and being told it was part of the old airport. The third building from the bottom (immediately east of the two existing buildings) is the old West Coast Airlines terminal which, though slightly enlarged from the one pictured, appears to have existed until around 2006.
Also, any links to photos of the early present-day terminal or “International” as I guess it was called, would also be appreciated.
The Elmers marker use to be on the west side, out side of the Elmers property, I’m glad they saved and moved it.
If you google the corner of Pine and Grand next to Miller paint and look at the corner, you can see a side walk repair near the light pole where I believe the marker use to be. I guess it has been longer than I thought, because the google picture says it is 2009.
I don’t think it was on the corner side.
The last time I saw it standing, it had been hit pretty hard and was in really bad shape.
On Google Maps you can still see traces of the old airport. In the second photo from the top in Bailey’s link there’s a large, oddly shaped patch of concrete that several planes are sitting on; that patch is easily visible on Google Maps. Also, the old runway that runs northwest is still clearly outlined.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=portland,+or&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=47.838189,66.005859&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Portland,+Multnomah,+Oregon&ll=45.594237,-122.606821&spn=0.01039,0.016115&t=h&z=16
Here’s an aerial photo of the airport from 1940
Pretty cool Dan. Other cities have ghost buildings. We have those AND ghost airports.
HEY, I had one of these for the last 15 years..Just gave it to my daughter!!
“On Google Maps you can still see traces of the old airport. ”
Yep, Dan, and if you have Google Earth and look at the images from about 2008 or before you can still see the oval driveway at the main entrance visible in the first and third photos from the link above (particularly the southern “oval” with a building in the middle of it in the old photos). Unfortunately, it was wiped out as part of the on-going project to lengthen runway 10L/28R.
This…is the mother of all posts. I am missing a ’40s map in my personal collection. Many things in the Kenilworth-Reed area very interesting to note. Vanport is in place, plus the western approach to Ross Island Bridge, pre Harbor Drive expressway extension.
Wow…mother of all posts 🙂
Roxanne…the psych hospital in Sellwood was the old Sellwood Hospital. Also, “PARRY” Center on Powell had kids at Grout with me in the 70s. Waverly Home was another orphanage at 35th & Woodward.
Lambert Gardens were sold when old Mr. Lambert died…closed about 1967…”Habitat” built between ’71-’75. Do you remember the huge fire that engulfed the whole north end of the Habitat in ’74? Dad and I came out of Albertsons on 39th and the whole sky was on fire…it engulfed a whole city block (up to Schiller).
And the old 82nd way into the airport and the backroads to the east? Yeah…grab a girl and go plane-watching (heh).
Fun, fun, fun.
I’ve got a 1930 edition of the Pittmon map. (with the airport on Swan Island)
When was the first edition made? 1907?
I have the book. By oregon blueprint. Multnomah county assessor WILBUR J. FALLOON 1947. COPYRIGHT 1946. Book map Portland OR and vicinity. What do I do with it.