A while back we had a discussion about how frequently the Columbia River froze over before the dams. On February 17, 1929 this frozen Columbia view was enough of a novelty for Alva Day to make a note on the negative. I think he took this shot from the Columbia River Highway just east of Koberg Beach/ Stanley Rock.
Category: [Downtown Hood River]
Tags: 1920s Alva_Day Columbia_River
Definitely Stanley Rock on the left of the photo. Looks mighty cold to me.
Fairly sparsely settled over there on the White Salem hillside. I notice the rows of fruit trees down there along the river.
Let us hope we don't get this cold again, but I doubt if the river would ever to completely freeze over now as the barges would keep a channel cut.
Good photo of how the winds keep the limbs pushed downriver, or what is left on the snag tree. East side may have broken off in winds...
charlott on 17th January 2014 @ 7:09am
Saw a deer cross the Columbia on the ice the same winter Tom Barney and Dick Jones put on their performance.
Buzz on 17th January 2014 @ 7:35am
Looks like a painting more than a photo.
I can't figure out what all of the flat white area is in the background. That doesn't look right.
l.e. on 17th January 2014 @ 8:01am
i.e., it maybe the fields of Asparagus that questioned us in an earlier photo
Jim Gray on 17th January 2014 @ 8:46am
I think the broad white expanse at the back of the photo is the Pucker Huddle area. And, beyond that, is Bald Mtn. and the White Salmon Canyon.
l.e. on 17th January 2014 @ 1:07pm
I'd love to know, i.e., how Pucker Huddle got it's name???
Jill Stanford on 17th January 2014 @ 2:00pm
I think Main Avenue runs right through the middle of the white area. Then it was probably someone's farm, while today it is the older housing of White Salmon.
Longshot2 on 17th January 2014 @ 6:16pm
I don't think that's Pucker Huddle. You have to be much further west to see Pucker Huddle. I think the white expanse is White Salmon(from downtown to the N). Google Earth seems to verify-- Strawberry Mtn. is out of frame to the west (left).
Arthur on 17th January 2014 @ 6:17pm
Jill, it supposedly got that name from the strawberry pickers, but there is this version in the White Salmon paper.
http://mas.stparchive.com/Archive/MAS/MAS02191953P01.php
According to this 1929 news page, this was the first time the river had frozen since 1910.
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~westklic/crossing.html
l.e. on 17th January 2014 @ 6:22pm
Thanks i.e.! Will go read that.
Jill Stanford on 17th January 2014 @ 6:55pm
Oops sorry Arthur and Longshot. I didn't see your posts.
OK. I'll accept that is White Salmon. I have seen early photos of WS and was amazed at how treeless the town area was.
l.e. on 17th January 2014 @ 8:12pm
Years ago I was told, possibly jokingly, that Pucker Huddle was a make-out spot hence puckering & huddleing.
CWL on 19th January 2014 @ 11:50pm
If you look close you can make out the road heading N out of Bingen upto White Salmon- the larger white flatter area looks to the east end of White Salmon above Vine Street- also the present ball fields- and white salmon bike park-
Can anyone make out the white steeple of St Joesph Church to the west built in 1909 ?
steve on 20th January 2014 @ 10:04pm
Boy steve, you have a better computer than I do. I can't see any buildings, much less a steeple.
This an old photo of cattle crossing the Columbia in 1929.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooftop65/10940154514/
l.e. on 20th January 2014 @ 11:33pm
Remember this photo down the river from Stanley Rock? Alva took it a week earlier.
http://historichoodriver.com/index.php?showimage=548
l.e. on 20th January 2014 @ 11:54pm
Wow, Steve really does have good eyes. I've checked the hi-res scan and you can indeed see many buildings in Bingen as well as the road to White Salmon-- someone's plowed it nicely. You can also make out a bunch of buildings at White Salmon, but they are much less distinct. I'll try to post some details to flickr when I have a chance.
Arthur on 21st January 2014 @ 12:10am
Oh yes, their performance. Wonder they didn't get killed, the idiots. See I can say that, as I was married to one of them.....
Charlott on 3rd February 2014 @ 8:02pm
My father, Harold Parsons, and his friend Roy Webster ice skated across the Columbia and back the next time it froze hard. Somebody in the next chair to my dad at the barber shop the next day said he had seen an odd sight the previous day...two men skating across the river. One very tall man was taking long, gliding steps and the shorter, stocky man was chopping along with short steps. My dad kept mum, but eventually Mother heard about it. I can hear her now, hollering, What were you thinking? You are a father!
Barbara Parsons on 14th November 2020 @ 3:16pm
Charlott, What did Dick do? I missed your earlier comment.
Barbara Parsons on 14th November 2020 @ 3:19pm