Category Archives: History

By Leo Newman | Contributing Writer

The dilapidated two-story brick building on the corner of NE 28th and NE Alberta St. met its fateful end at the hands of a wrecking crew the first week of January. The building, easily remembered by the mural of graffiti which developed over the decade it stood vacant, finally came down after a prolonged dispute between the city and its most recent proprietor, Erzsebet Eppley. Its demolition marks the end of over a century of urban development, change and decay in NE Portland.

Grocery Store and Dancehall

At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Portland was experiencing major booms in industry, commerce and population. Roads and streetcar tracks cut into the hilly forests and fields of the east side as developers hopped east from the city center to develop the Alberta, Concordia and Alameda neighborhoods. In 1903, the city introduced the Alberta Streetcar line which ran from downtown, north up Union Avenue (now NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd) and east down NE Alberta to NE 25th. By 1913, the streetcar ran up to NE 30th and continued to NE Ainsworth Ave.

Among the business owners and residents flocking to claim their stake along Alberta was T.H. Cowley, whose family owned multiple groceries around Portland. In March 1916, T.H. Cowley secured a permit to repair his two-story frame store on 872-874 Alberta Street between East 27th and East 28th. He contracted Philadelphia-born architect Alfred H. Faber to repair the second story over his grocery store.

Active in Portland between 1904 and 1917, Faber was an early architect to design single family homes in NE Portland. He built a reputation for his ornate, decorated single family homes in the Piedmont neighborhood, a few which still stand today.

Faber dressed the second story’s exterior in red brick with three large windows and a cresting roof on each face. Inside, he outfitted the space as a dancehall.

Starting on January 4th, 1917, Cowley ran a set of ads in the Morning Oregonian, advertising his new second story dancehall with its 45×50 new maple floor, “suitable for dancing parties and receptions, $5.00 per night; Saturdays $6.00; includes heat, light, piano.”

Between 1917 and 1922, The Cowley building appeared to host a revolving door of groceries out of its two ground floor units.

Church Meetings and Housing

Another early tenant included the Brotherhood of Divine Revelation that occupied the Cowley building as early as August 8th, 1925, when the Brotherhood took out a small advertisement in The Advocate, Portland’s second oldest Black newspaper. Squished between much larger spreads for Meyer & Frank and J.C. Penny, a later ad in The Advocate announced free admission to “A PERSONAL MESSAGE: Every Sunday 3 and 8p.m” as well as private consultations by appointment. It is unclear if the Brotherhood occupied the dancehall or the second unit on the ground floor.

By 1938, the Alberta district was home to a number of Black families, as well as a sizable number of Russian, Japanese and Chinese immigrants. Wartime industrial production brought hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from across the country to Portland and Vancouver. To accommodate an enormous demand for housing, a permit was issued in September 1943 via the emergency war code to convert the second-story dancehall into four apartments. A month later, another permit allowed the two storefronts to be converted into a single family unit.

Disrepair and Demolition

The Cowley building changed hands a number of times through the twentieth century. By 1992, the building (vacant on the lower level) was jointly owned by H.A. Struckman and Joseph Boczki. The latter left Hungary with his wife Elizabeth for Portland in 1970. The Boczkis developed a real estate business and lived on a large parcel of land in Pleasant Valley.

Lack of structural maintenance under the Boczkis pushed the building into disrepair. Joe and Elizabeth died in 2010 and 2012, leaving their daughter Erzsebet ‘Boz’ Eppley in charge of the building. Around the same time, the last tenant upstairs moved out. One Reddit user remembers the condition of the upstairs apartments around this time as “really cheap, but sketchy as hell, with lots of leaks and odd repairs. When they moved out the landlords decided it was unsafe.”

The Cowley building’s final tenant, Al Forno Ferruzza, a Sicilian-style pizzeria battled an intensifying black mold problem and was finally forced to close in 2014 after a pipe burst causing flooding and excessive water damage.

By June 2024, Eppley, who also owns the boarded up property behind the Cowley building, owed the city more than $53,000 in fines relating to code violations. Though she successfully evaded an attempt by former Mayor Ted Wheeler to auction the building last summer, the Cowley building met the wrecking ball in early January.

Leo Newman is a paralegal and aspiring writer based in NE Portland. Trained as a historian, he enjoys exploring the history of Portland and the Pacific Northwest.

Concordian Melissa Darby might be considered a time traveler. As an anthropologist, archaeologist, historian and author, she has gone back in time and brought history to the present.

What better place for her to live than in the 1800’s home that was once inhabited by the Kennedy family (the namesake for McMenamins Kennedy School.) Agnes Kennedy White moved on to a nursing home in her eighties and the Darby family took possession of the home. It was 1979. Except for an updated kitchen, bathroom and a few repairs, not much has changed since then.

White shared newspaper clippings and photographs of the Kennedy School, which had opened in 1915 and eventually closed in 1975 due to decline and low attendance.

“You know, someone really ought to do something about that school, it’s lovely,” White told Darby. Before Kennedy School was abandoned in the 1990’s, White told Darby that it was her turn to save the building.

And so, she did. But not without a struggle.

“So I called up the school district and said, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to nominate it to the National Register of Historic Places, and it’ll help bring in developers.’ They were not interested, they would not return my calls. I asked the school board, ‘Hey, can we talk about this? Can we get this on the agenda?’ I would send letters, but I got nothing back! I sent flowers to the superintendent with a little note saying, ‘If you receive this, would you let me know?’ I got nothing! Finally, I had nominated the building, and it got some attention from the Oregonian and from the school board. Since [the school district] was going to be represented at a public meeting, they eventually had to do something.”

According to Darby, “a group of neighbors, alumni, the mayor’s office, community members and others got together to save Kennedy School from the wrecking ball.”

Her efforts paid off — the property was preserved and McMenamins took stewardship in 1997.

If not for the efforts of Darby and her cohorts, we would not have this neighborhood treasure today nor would we be able to appreciate its remarkable architecture, history, and community events. Darby truly helped to preserve Portland history. One of the guest rooms is even named after her.

There’s also a painting hung at Kennedy School by artist Myrna Yoder depicting Darby and other McMenamins pioneers.

Since the opening of McMenamins Kennedy School, Darby has worked on archaeology and history projects throughout Oregon and Washington. For 6 years, she investigated Sir Francis Drake and the Golden Hind’s 1579 landing near Depoe Bay and in 2019, she published a book about it. The book is called Thunder Go North and is available at Amazon and on Audible.

She is still looking into the past and bringing it to the present.

After living east, south, north and west, Marsha Sandman is home at last. And she wants to hear your story. Contact her at MarshaJSandman@gmail.com.

By Nancy Varekamp | CNews Editor

Vanport isn’t history to Ed Washington. The 84-year-old Concordian’s four years there helped lay his foundation for embracing education, civil rights and civic engagement.

In 1944, when he was seven, Ed’s family moved from Alabama to Vanport to join his father who was employed at Henry J. Kaiser’s Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation. Oregon’s second largest city was filled with apartments, schools, community centers and clinics.

“What I remember most about it was just the number of people there, though it wasn’t like we were all crawling all over each other. There were so many activities in Vanport, particularly in summer. There was never a lack of things to do.

“The schools were so wonderful.” One vivid memory was his class planting gourd seeds in early May 1948, in preparation for September harvesting, drying and painting. The flood took the garden, the entire city, most personal belongings and the lives of at least a dozen people.

From one of many evacuation buses on Denver Avenue, he witnessed the berm give way to the wall of water.

His family slept that night in a school cafeteria, then two weeks in a church before a longer stay in converted Army barracks on Swan Island.

Ed attributes much of his commitment to community to his mother. She raised seven children in those uncertain times. And she taught him the importance of family and community. While in Vanport – and even after the family’s stay on Swan Island – George H. Oberteuffer served as Boy Scout mentor to Ed.

Obie told him, “Things are not what they should be for you and for people that look like you and your brothers. But Eddie, I don’t want you to ever get discouraged, because things are going to change. When those changes start, I want you and your brothers to be prepared.’”

Two moves later, Ed attended Irvington Elementary School, where his teacher led field trips to the Legislature, county courthouse, city hall and elsewhere.

“I learned how government worked from Mrs. [Hazel] Hill. I used to take kids on trips like the ones she took us on to experience much of what I had.”

Ed began practicing what she taught him during his successful campaigns for Grant High School class president, and much later to the Metro Council.

His dedication to civic involvement and civil rights – including presidency of the local NAACP – grew over the years. He’s still going strong, serving as director of Community Outreach and Engagement for the Portland State University Office of Global Diversity & Inclusion, among a flurry of other commitments.

Editor’s note: Space here doesn’t allow for many of Ed’s memories. For additional details, visit ConcordiaPDX.org/EdWashington. For oral histories from him and fellow Vanport survivors, visit VanportMosaic.org/the-living-archive/ category/Oral+History. 

By Doug Decker | Historian

Editor’s note: Historian-turned-teacher Doug Decker offers a new chapter each Monday in neighborhood history for students continuing their schooling at home. Visit Home History School at AlamedaHistory.org for archived and new lesson plans. One May Monday, he offered the history lesson below related to the area’s oldest living residents: trees.

Portland has more than 300 Heritage Trees, which have a special designation because of their unique size, age or historical significance. Northeast Portland neighborhoods have a great cluster of Heritage Trees north of Broadway Street, east of Interstate Avenue, south of Killingsworth Street and west of 33rd Avenue.

A bunch are probably within walking distance of you, so it’s time to meet some of them, especially one of our favorites, the Pearson Pine at 29th Avenue and Fremont Street.

Long ago, before neighborhoods existed on these lands, there were forests of Douglas-fir, hemlock, western red cedar, alder, maple and even pine that blanketed these lands. Gradually many of those trees were cut either for lumber or to make room for the farm fields and orchards that followed.

And then 100 years ago, when most of our neighborhoods were just taking shape, the people who built our streets and houses figured the new homeowners would want tree-lined streets. But they knew it would take a while, so they planted many different kinds. Some of those have gotten old and big.

One such tree is the big Ponderosa pine at the southwest corner of 29th Avenue and Alameda Street. A few years back, I nominated that tree to Portland’s heritage tree list after learning its story, which goes something like this:

Back in about 1885, there was a forest fire that burned through this area and killed many trees, young and old, but left some trees untouched. After the fire, a local farmer named Samuel Pearson – who used to run a dairy that stood about where Alameda School is today – found one of these young seedlings that survived the fire: a Ponderosa pine tree, which is much more common in eastern Oregon.

Because it was different than most of the other trees around here, Samuel knew it would always stand out, so he planted it in a special place to mark the corner of his property. Today, it’s a giant, visible from all around.

His dairy and cows are long gone, but Samuel was right: that tree sure stands out. So do all of the other Heritage Trees in the neighborhood.

For additional research sources on Heritage Trees, click here.

Heritage Trees activity suggestions & novelties

1. Have a look at the trees around your house. Can you tell which one is the tallest or the oldest? Ask around your family or your neighbors to see if you can learn when your trees were planted. (One family who lived in our house planted a live Christmas tree in front of our house back in the 1970s and it grew tall before it had to be removed).
2. How about your neighborhood? Can you tell which trees are the tallest or the oldest? Have they been trimmed to make way for the power lines? Can you see old scars where branches may have broken off in the snow, ice or wind?
3. Here’s something that might be fun. See if you can identify the species of trees you have around your house or on your block. There are many clues to look at when you identify your tree: the shape of its leaves (or needles), the texture of its bark, its shape and size, its flowers, cones, seeds or fruit. Check out this helpful tree identification tool.
4. Which is your favorite tree in your neighborhood? Why? How have you seen it change? Draw a picture of your favorite tree.
5. Draw a map that shows the different trees around your house or on your block and what kind they are.
6. Go visit the Pearson Pine and stand underneath its branches. Did you know this is one of the oldest living things in our area? What stories do you think it could tell?
7. Did you know trees all have different sounds as the winds blow through? Next windy day, listen carefully.
8. Here’s a link to the map of some local Heritage Trees. Choose a few to visit and find your favorite.

Doug Decker initiated his blog AlamedaHistory.org in 2007 to collect and share knowledge about the life of old houses, buildings and neighborhoods in northeast Portland. His basic notion is that insight to the past adds new meaning to the present.

By Doug Decker | Historian

I’ve been watching two commercial corners just a few blocks apart that share similar histories but are on very different pathways to the future. They pose a question worth pondering: what do we want our neighborhood to feel like in the future?

The old Logan Grocery structure at 33rd Avenue and Alberta Street, built in 1910, is slated for demolition to be replaced by a three-story, 19-unit, short-term Airbnb hotel.

Meanwhile, a few blocks over, at the northeast corner of 30th Avenue and Emerson Street, a similar but very different story is unfolding.

Here, a 107-year-old wood-frame, mixed-use, commercial building that was once also a grocery store is being restored and re-purposed for a medical practice and neighborhood coffee shop.

Both buildings – and most 100-year-old-plus buildings – have foundations that need work. For the Logan Grocery building, it was a deal breaker, and the owner chose to start over through demolition.

At 30th and Emerson, with similar infrastructure, the owner chose to renovate. That work begins with major foundation and structural work and then completely renovating the interior and using the existing exterior building envelope.

That offers a contrast between old and new while staying at the same scale as the surrounding neighborhood. The clinic and a new coffee shop are to occupy the first floor. Glass roll-up garage doors in the coffee shop on the north face of the building are planned to open onto an open outdoor patio. Upstairs are apartments, much like the old days.

Our neighborhood continues to wrestle with growth, density, affordability, traffic and many other pressures and needs. I hope we can bring a memory, an appreciation and a sense of our past forward with us to help create a better future.

This will be my last piece as your “Ask the historian” columnist. Thanks for caring about Concordia history. It’s been a fun and enlightening five years. I step aside from CNews to make room for continued teaching, research and scholarship about our collective public history. I invite you to follow my continuing northeast Portland early history explorations on my blog AlamedaHistory.org, where I’m always available to respond to inquiries and observations about our past.

Doug Decker initiated his blog AlamedaHistory.org in 2007 to collect and share knowledge about the life of old houses, buildings and neighborhoods in northeast Portland. His basic notion is that insight to the past adds new meaning to the present.

By Doug Decker | Historian

The old green building at 33rd Avenue and Alberta Street says “Notice of 120-day delay for demolition.” That means the building is about to be torn down and replaced by condominiums.

Here’s the story: The 109-year-old grocery store building, built before both streets were paved, is slated for demolition and will be replaced by a three-story, mixed-use condominium and office building.

Developer Bob Bochsler of Box Real Estate Holdings in Portland expects demolition to take place in 2020 with construction to follow soon thereafter. Although drawings for the new structure are not yet complete, he envisions a building with a pitched roof and an inner courtyard facing Alberta. “I want to be in keeping with the Pacific Northwest style,” he said.

When the developer first approached the project, he said he wanted to consider ways to utilize the existing building. Adaptive reuse, however, was not cost effective, due to costs associated with reinforcing the foundation.

The property is ranked in the City of Portland Historic Resource Inventory, which recognizes its significance for potential historic register designation. However, because past owners never listed the property in the National Register of Historic Places, it may be torn down after a brief delay.

Operated from the 19-teens until the 1940s as Logan’s Grocery, the building cycled through multiple owners from the 1950s through the 1970s, known as Zwhalen’s Grocery and then as Romoli’s. From the late 1970s until recently, the building contained the studio and residence of noted Portland artist Jay Backstrand.

Concordian Bob Wilson, grandson of former storekeepers Anna and Earl Logan, has fond memories of the store from its heyday. In recent correspondence, Wilson shared these memories:

“When I was a small child, my grandparents lived in the house just south of the store. My grandmother would fix lunch every day for my grandfather Earl and bring it over to him.

“Earl was the storekeeper. Anna was the butcher for the store. As a small boy it was so much fun to be with my grandparents, and then to go over to their store and see all of the people who dropped by.”

I’m collecting memories and photos of the life of this old building and welcome hearing from any CNews readers who have a story or photo to share.

Doug Decker initiated his blog Alamedahistory.org in 2007 to collect and share knowledge about the life of old houses, buildings and neighborhoods in northeast Portland. His basic notion is that insight to the past adds new meaning to the present.

Ask the historian is a CNews standing feature that encourages readers to ask questions about the history of the neighborhood and its buildings. Is there something you’ve wondered about? Drop a line to CNewsEditor@ ConcordiaPDX.org and ask Doug Decker to do some digging.

By Doug Decker | Historian

The Concordia neighborhood is a quilt of underlying subdivisions, also known as plats filed by developers more than 100 years ago when they first laid out – and then carved out – streets and lots from the fields and forests that occupied these gentle slopes above the Columbia River.

My June column mentioned Foxchase, one of those plats. But there are many more, each one with its own history: Kennedy’s Addition, Ina Park, Lester Park, Town of Creighton, Heidelberg, Sunderland Acres, Concordia Green and the largest of all, Irvington Park.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the makers of our neighborhood wanted to name it after another neighborhood that already exists? That’s marketing for you.

The Irvington Park plat occupies the area from 25th to 33rd avenues, between Rosa Parks Way and Killingsworth Street, an area of about 175 acres. That’s big by northeast Portland plat standards.

When the Irvington Park plat was filed back in November 1890, the Irvington neighborhood we know today south of Fremont Street was already a going concern with wide streets, big houses and wealthy business people moving in and building up the area. Today we would say property values there were definitely skyrocketing.

The initial developer of Irvington Park here in Concordia in 1890, Edward Quackenbush, liked the vibe of the original Irvington – which he was not party to, by the way – and wanted to cash in on the coattails of its identity, something that other east Portland developers tried to do as well.

Check out the adjacent advertisement from The Oregonian July 10, 1907, that implies a connection with “Irvington Proper,” but also points out that prices in Irvington Park are way less expensive.

Other eastside developers did the same thing, which was annoying for the Irvington real estate people. But it worked.

With the help of the Alberta Streetcar, homeowners flocked to Irvington Park and the commercial district around Alberta Street boomed. A community club was organized, a club house and dancing venue was built near 30th Avenue and Ainsworth Street.

And something else happened: community spirit. Here’s a paragraph from The Oregonian July 25, 1915:

“There never was a finer feeling in a community than now exists in Irvington Park – and their community club has done it and its work will go on benefitting one and all and bringing them closer and closer together.”

Ask the Historian is a CNews standing feature that encourages readers to ask questions about the history of the neighborhood and its buildings. Is there something you’ve wondered about? Drop a line to CNewsEditor@ ConcordiaPDX.org and ask Doug Decker to do some digging.

Doug Decker initiated his blog AlamedaHistory.org in 2007 to collect and share knowledge about the life of old houses, buildings and neighborhoods in northeast Portland. His basic notion is that insight to the past adds new meaning to the present.

By Doug Decker | Historian

If someone asked you to find Foxchase on a map, could you? Here’s a clue: it was one of a dozen different subdivisions created more than 100 years ago which, taken together today, make up what we think of as the Concordia neighborhood. (For a visual clue, check out the 1954 photo on this page.)

Foxchase (not Fox Chase) was a subdivision platted in 1889 by J. Carroll McCaffrey that contains 15 square blocks, from Alberta to Killingsworth streets between 29th and 33rd avenues. Today, some might refer to the 30th-Killingsworth intersection as Foxchase, but it’s actually a much larger chunk of the neighborhood.

McCaffrey was a Georgetown-educated attorney, born and raised in Philadelphia, who kept a small practice there as well as here in Portland. He and wife Eugenie were busy on the social scene in both communities and frequent travelers back and forth.

Speculating in property was his specialty and he was getting ready for Portland’s boom times by buying up nearby open lands.

At that point in our history, there wasn’t much up here on these gentle slopes of the Columbia Slough and the Columbia River beyond. Fields, forests, a few dairies here and there, Homestead Act claims from the 1860s held by a couple dozen families.

Alberta was a dirt track meandering 10 blocks between what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (Union Avenue then) and what is today’s 15th Avenue.

McCaffrey sold lots in Foxchase and used that money to buy up other open land for the eventual grids of streets and lots that would follow.

Fox Chase is the name of a comfortable neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia, named for an 18th century inn. During McCaffrey’s timeframe of reference – the 1870s-1880s – Philadelphia’s rich and famous were building their mansions in Fox Chase. He and Eugenie were trying to call that to mind.

McCaffrey turned out to be a scoundrel who was arrested and imprisoned for land fraud. Homebuilding in the Foxchase plat didn’t really take off until after the turn of the century, years after his departure from Portland and his death.

But the name stuck and seems to be experiencing a bit of a renaissance at the moment. For more on McCaffrey and a look at the Foxchase plat, visit AlamedaHistory.org and enter “Foxchase” in the search box.

Doug Decker is taking a breather during the August and September CNews issues. But don’t let that discourage you from sending in questions about the history of the neighborhood and its buildings. Drop a line to CNewsEditor@ConcordiaPDX.org. CNews will save them for when Doug resumes and ask him to do some digging.

Doug Decker initiated his blog AlamedaHistory.org in 2007 to collect and share knowledge about the life of old houses, buildings and neighborhoods in northeast Portland. His basic notion is that insight to the past adds new meaning to the present.