Men working on the Marquam Gulch Sewer Relocation project at SW Arthur Street and SW 2nd Avenue, 1963.
Marquam Gulch Sewer Relocation Project, 1963
Vintage Portland
Men working on the Marquam Gulch Sewer Relocation project at SW Arthur Street and SW 2nd Avenue, 1963.
Vintage Portland 
How many hardhat workers can you see? Correct answers get extra thumbs up.
Here’s a good site to look at if you want to know the history of the roughly 300 acres that comprise Marquam Gulch (with maps & photos).
Here’s an excerpt to whet the appetite…
1857
Sold to Judge Philip A Marquam for $2500. In 1881 Marquam platted the “Portland City Homestead” subdivision.
http://explorepdx.com/judgemarq.html
December 2021 view:
The workers nearest the camera on the right look as though they might both be wearing Red Wing Irish Setter work boots with oil-resistant soles. These are fit hardworking men.
Thorn: looks like 8 to me (the white seen at the rear of the shovel in the distance could be one or two other men working bent over – hard to tell.
That trench shoring seems exceptional for 1963. The soil there must be very unstable. Cave ins and deaths were much more common then. Trench workers have OSHA to thank for the large steel shoring structures that are in use today.
Ron K, most of this trench is located in poorly constructed fill. (Although not this particular block) Marquam Gulch was wide & deep.
The Lompoc is visible in the distance on the right. It looks like its sign says “New Old Lompoc,” which, if I remember right, is what it was called in more recent times.
I heard that they used the dirt from the Jefferson tunnels to fill Marquam Gulch.
Susan — I just tried to find confirmation of what you heard, and saw that it was discussed in this VP post:
https://vintageportland.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/duniway-park-1934-2/
There are comments by Susan (you, or another?) and Cynthia pertaining to the fill.
Susan the photo for today is from 1963 and the first Vista Ridge tunnel built was the eastbound tunnel. The bid for the first tunnel was awarded in October 1965, and what follows is a photo caption from the Oregonian on 1/11/1966 showing excavation work for the east side tunnel portal.
“Removal of hillside is well under way at what was once SW 19th Avenue and Mill Street and will become Vista Ridge tunnel by April 1967. Truckloads of dirt are hauled two blocks away to provide fill for section of the Stadium Freeway (I-405) leading to tunnel entrance.”
I would think soil from the west end of the tunnel would be used for fill material for the widening of the Sunset Hwy.
Over the years, We spent a fortune at LaGrande !
i like the new brick building just been put up it looks historic
Not the billboard. Info on Boron. ” After World War II, franchised gasoline additives gave way to individual refiners chemical compounds. Both Shell and Conoco enhanced their product with an additive known as “TCP.” The element boron was added to gasoline offered by Sohio, DX and Richfield of California and nickel was added to Sinclair fuels. “
There are 9 hardhat workers.
Dad told me TCP was Tom cat piss. There were a lot of ads around the theme “Put a tiger in your tank.”
Dennis, I was told that the playing fields at Lincoln High School (the fields that have recently given way to the new building there) were created using some of the fill. Any way to verify that? They were certainly very close to the tunnel.
Liz– I took a look at Portland Maps 1948 aerial view of the Lincoln High School site before it was built in the early 1950’s and the area along SW 18th had a large depression that was filled for the school athletic field. The 1960 aerial photo shows the athletic field as it remained until construction of the new school started, so none of the material from the Vista Ridge tunnel project that stared in late 1965 would have been used at Lincoln HS.