There’s an auto-related business on the northeast corner of SE 20th Avenue and Belmont Street today. Yesterday’s post showed there was one there in 1965, and today’s post shows there was one there in 1931 also. It might even be the same building still standing. The crew doing the sewer repair here seems to be doing it with a dusting of snow on the ground.
(City of Portland Archives)
Vintage Portland 
PortlandMaps has little information on this building with the only reference to a year being a plumbing permit from 1950. Looks to me to be the same building: http://goo.gl/maps/udfiO
“As long as it makes it down to the Willamette” says the man in the long coat……….
I’m assuming that is Lone Fir Cemetery in the background. I always wondered what it looked like when there was only one fir tree there. If there ever was
there was only one tree back when it was established,ergo the name. have not seen any photos though
i think its a newer version,maybe from 1950,dimensions are different,and present building is metal,whereas older building looks like concrete block
The building to the north is not hidden by a billboard like in the 1965 picture.
Those metal 50’s gas stations were modular, shipped by truck in panels, and simply bolted together and to the foundation. It appears it replaced the prior wooden one, perhaps on the same foundation? The leaky underground tanks might have been making there way to the Willamette as well if its been a station for over 80 years…
That lion on the sign on top of the station looks reminiscent of that that was on to of the washington park zoo train station. The shape and lion look really familiar. Could just be my goofy head though.
The gas station, now battery store, appears to be the same one as in the 1965 photo previously. The one in this picture is a wooden construction with shingled roof.
Gilmore gasoline… https://www.google.com/search?q=gilmore+gasoline&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=6W7ZUu6zBpPkoATtqoLQDQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1093&bih=526#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=xlmFLQTJrCrqlM%253A%3Bu2YqdChPiDcwaM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.bonnevilleworldwide.com%252FMerchant2%252Fgraphics%252F00000001%252FgilmoreGasLG.gif%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.bonnevilleworldwide.com%252FMerchant2%252Fmerchant.mv%253FScreen%253DPROD%2526Store_Code%253DBSS%2526Product_Code%253DBS904092%2526Category_Code%253DMetal%252BSigns-07%3B400%3B402
Maybe this was what I was thinking of:
I believe that the trees we see in the background are on block 14 of Lone Fir Cemetery. Some interesting history can be found here:
http://www.friendsoflonefircemetery.org/history/block-14
What’s most fascinating about this historical photo is you can see the birth of “plumber’s crack” with the guy squatting. This fashion of course progressed through the decades, culminating in the explicit, iconic fashion of our present day.
I love seeing these old photos of Portland!