A Portland Oregon Summer in 1905

Portland Oregon in 1888 (thanks to LOC)

I have a diary from 1905 from my great-grandfather Alvin Barton Barber's sister Aunt Fanny Barber who went to school in Rhode Island but finished in June 1905 and returned to Portland, Oregon.  Her family lived there and she stayed with them before finding her first teaching job in Puyalip, Washington (that's how she spelled it, I know it is now Puyallup, WA).  I've been transcribing the summer entries since it makes it clear how much her brother Alvin "Vin" B. Barber and Lucy Lombardi (my great grandparents) were well known to each other by 1905 since both the families lived in Portland..  Fanny included Lucy Lombardi among the people she sent Commencement announcements, though Lucy Lombardi had finished her degree the previous year at Bryn Mawr.  Vin had finished at West Point in 1905 as well and the family returned by train to Portland, Oregon.  Vin to await his first orders in the Army and Fanny to find a job teaching school.

My transcription of this diary is not good enough yet, so instead I will share some pictures if I can find them of Portland in 1905 and the places they went for church, for "barge" parties, to the Fair, and movies they saw.

"Vin" and a Mr. West went up Mt. Rainier that summer leaving July 18, 1905 and returning "early" July 28, 1905 as did this group (they might have been in the group, the picture is from 1905):

Thanks to Oregon State University Archives, and their posting of this image on Flickr Commons, see larger version at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/osucommons/3230006120/sizes/l/

The year 1905 was a particularly festive year in Portland since it was the year of the Lewis and Clark Exposition celebrating the centennial of the trek of them and their many fellow voyagers across the Continent. 

The Exposition celebrated the many features of Oregon, as well as a false lagoon where Fanny and family members went on July 4, 1905:

Thanks to Oregon State University Archives, and their posting of this image on Flickr Commons, see larger version

Besides exploring this area and taking a boat road on the lagoon, the Barber family also saw Trixie the Trained Horse."   The fair also included this impressive Forestry Hall which was quite a break from the "White Buildings" typical of these expositions:

Thanks to Oregon State University Archives, and their posting of this image on Flickr Commons, see here

and of course an impressive Agricultural Display:

But there were also outings to the river where she and friends would canoe or have barge parties.  Though such outings were fun, it seemed common for a wind to pick up and make the return trips quite hard.

Thanks to Oregon State University Archives, and their posting of this image on Flickr Commons

Fanny, Mrs. Lombardi and Lucy Lombardi took the train to Multanomah Falls, had lunch there (but not at the restuarant to which you might have been since it only opened in 1925) and then went to Oneonta Gorge.  Fanny writes "where I broke my glasses & got wet ‘ way up. Man rowed up back to the Falls & came back on the train."  She found the glasses when she later tried to go to Bonneville for a Salmon Festival, missed most of it, but could stop at the Falls on the way back.  This scene of a riverboat steam is about 15 years earlier, but gives the impression of where they were heading:

She also went fairly often to her "Joe" sing at Calvary Chapel.  This could have been the younger Lombardi for whom my grandfather was named. Calvary Church is still there in Portland.  Here's a rather contemporary shot of it:

Picture came from Flickr, click here to go to original poster's stream.

Now my brother lives in Portland and sees these places 105 years later.  Bet they didn't know that would happen. 

Fanny took many naps that summer and I'm ready for one too.