Dr. Dorothy Johansen (1904-1999), longtime professor of history and humanities at Reed College, in 1952 penned a pamphlet for the Standard Insurance Company of Portland, titled “Western Foods and Recipes 100 Years Ago.” It is described in this Sunset Magazine (November 1952) advertisement, but finding a copy involved a major search effort. It’s not listed…
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After fire destroyed Sunnymead last fall, my sister Laural sent me copies of a number of family photographs that were taken there. Here is one of them, shot almost exactly a half century ago. I am standing in front of the living room fireplace in my first and only suit: graduation, 8th grade, Warrenton Elementary…
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We’re back now from the 330-mile drive to Lava Beds Road near Diamond, Harney County, Oregon, for Mother’s Day with Terry’s folks. The waters are rising again in the Harney Basin, and water laps at the edges of the roads. One day we visited Terry’s sister Andrea about 30 miles away; she loaded us up…
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The Pullman Company operated most of sleeping cars on American railroads from the 1870s until its final dissolution in 1968. Founder George M. Pullman also brought fine dining to the rails, and the Pullman Company contracted to operate food service at various times on various railroads. This menu appears to date from between 1888 and…
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Potato postcard “Look at your computer mouse. That’s how big a baked potato should be,” proclaims a syndicated story in today’s Seattle Times. “The supersizing of American portions has been going on for years.” … the Old Oaken Bucket. Sheet music Just how many years? Well, it’s easy to go back more than a century:…
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Last fall we whizzed through the northern edge of Davenport, Washington, the county seat of Lincoln County since 1896 (though only after more than a decade of squabbling about it). I need to go back for a better look at this isolated wheat country town. And I need to find out more about grape nip. The 1950 edition…
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In 1969, I turned in my BA thesis at Reed College: “‘ … and so made town and country one’: the Streetcar and the Building of Portland, Oregon, 1872-1920.” A few years later (1973?), Steve Dotterer and I did a streetcar photo exhibit, “Along the Car Lines,” for the local chapter of the American Institute…
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The Green Hut was a landmark cafe, souvenir stand, and vista point at the base of Grand Coulee Dam. The cafe was opened in 1938 by Clarence D. Newland, who had previously operated Green Huts at two earlier federal dam projects, at Fort Peck on the Missouri, and at Boulder on the Colorado. The prime…
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A recent acquisition: one of the oldest regional cookbooks in my collection. It’s The Monday Club Cook Book, “compiled by the Ladies of the Every Monday Club, First Presbyterian Church, Astoria, Oregon.” The Astorian Job Printing Company did the work in 1899, and my copy is inscribed, “Mrs. F. P. Kendall, December 12th 1899.”…
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“A Northwest Language of Contact, Diplomacy, and Identity: Chinook Wawa / Chinook Jargon,” by Henry Zenk and Tony A. Johnson, appears in the new Winter 2010 issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly. Although the article focuses on the use of the language in the treaty negotiations of the 1850s, it touches on its long-continued currency among some…
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