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A few photos of the fountain in Holladay Park, in NE Portland next to Lloyd Center. The park dates back to 1870, but this fountain has only been here since the park renovation in 2000 (the same time the Neighborhood Gardener statue went in.)
The city's page about the park mentions this replaced a 1964 concrete fountain that played music. I vaguely recall something about this, but I don't remember what it looked like, and I haven't been able to find any photos of it. I seem to recall it had become rather decrepit and hadn't worked for years by the time they removed it. I could probably go to the Multnomah County library's online Oregonian database and come up with more info about the old fountain, but unfortunately that database doesn't include photos, which is the thing I'm really interested in.
I'd also be interested in recordings of the music the old fountain used to play, or video of it doing its thing. I have a mental image of it as a small and cheesy 60's version of the Bellagio Fountain, but that may just be because that's the only contemporary musical fountain that I've seen in person.
So I don't have a lot of interesting stuff to pass along about the current fountain, or about the park for that matter. The park's namesake, the, uh, "colorful" Ben Holladay is another matter. Portland has so few really entertaining historical figures, so we really ought to enjoy/exploit the few we've got. Some selected reading, from across the interwebs:
- Ben Holladay: The Man and his Whiskey
- "Ben Holladay: The Stagecoach King"
- Suit against Ben Holladay, New York Times, May 12, 1884.
- Holladay v. Daily, US Supreme Court, 1873
- "Ben Holladay , Cherokeee Trailblazers, Jack Slade and Virginia Dale"
- "The Holladay Cases"
- Cafe Unknown: "Forgotten Portland"
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