Butteville Riverboat Landing

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Some photos of Butteville Riverboat Landing, at historic Butteville on the south bank of the Willamette between Champoeg and Wilsonville. Butteville is best known for the Butteville Store, which is supposedly the oldest continuously operating business in the state. It probably doesn't hurt that the store sits at one end of the Champoeg State Park trail system and (I assume) sells water and snacks. It turns out, though, that Butteville was once a small but thriving river port, and a few remnants of those days survive to the present time. About a block directly downhill from the store, toward the river, a sign says "PUBLIC ACCESS" and names the spot as "Butteville Riverboat Landing Marion County Historic Site". Beyond it is a narrow parcel of land sandwiched between two houses, with a short trail leading to the river and some concrete remnants that may have been a dock at one point. I assume this means the county owns the land in some capacity, although Marion County Parks doesn't say a word about it. Possibly it still falls under the Ferries department, but I'm really not sure. In any event, the key thing is that it's a public river access point, whoever technically owns it.

An excerpt from the fascinating book Willamette Landings describes Butteville thusly:

Butteville (aka LaButte). On the south side or east shore of the river. Established in the 1840s by George Abernethy and Alanson Beers, it was little more than a river landing, with a warehouse and a few dwellings. During the flood of 1861 it incurred extensive damage. By the 1870s, most of the local agriculture was being shipped via the Oregon & California Railroad which had been constructed several miles to the east.

Which is more or less the story we see all along the Willamette River: A locality along the river sorta-thrived briefly, only to be killed off by some combination of floods and railroads. In Butteville's case it wasn't completely the end though; after commercial traffic up and down the river petered out, the town was still home to ferry traffic across the river for a while. a 1905 photo shows a town that appears larger than today's sleepy Butteville. The caption reads:

This is Butteville in 1905. The town site is located on the Willamette River about sixteen miles south of Oregon City. The road leads downhill to the former Butteville Ferry dock.

To this day, there's a street named "Butteville Ferry Road" directly on the far side of the river. That's usually a good clue.

A 1910 photo shows a different but similar waterfront, with the caption:

This photograph is of a picture of the waterfront at Butteville, Oregon on the Willamette River in northern Marion County. The town is mentioned in journals as early as 1845 and was variously known as Butes and La Butte in the mid-1800's when it was a busy shipping point for wheat and other valley crops. Its business district encompassed several blocks and its events were reported up and down the valley. When the Oregon & California Railroad was routed several miles to the east in 1871, the agricultural products which had previously gone by river were shipped by rail and the town gradually began to decline. This picture, taken in 1910, shows pilings at the waterfront and few frame buildings on the road into town. The original photograph is from the collection of Captain Eckhart.

Finally, a 1954 photo from the Butteville side of the river shows a quiet scene, with a few decayed pilings that look like those in the earlier photos. The photo caption:

Butteville is located about nine miles south of Oregon City and was staked out about 1845 by George Abernethy & Alanson Beers. In 1895 it had 4 stores, 4 warehouses, blacksmiths, 3 saloons, and a ferry across the Willamette River. Two steamboats called daily; it was an important trade center & shipping point until near the turn of the century. In October 1954, the ferry landing was no longer in use and the town was nearly a ghost town.

The book A History of Oregon Ferries since 1826 indicates ferry service existed intermittently at Butteville into the early 20th century, and includes the 1905 photo as documentation. It seems the first recorded Butteville Ferry sailed in 1851. In 1857 it became known as Hibbard's Ferry when a gentleman by that name was licensed to operate for one year. In 1860, the Vaughn Ferry plied its trade here, as did the Curtis Ferry circa 1870-72, the Schwartz Ferry in 1913, and the Scheurer Ferry in 1915-16. The last citation refers to Butteville city council minutes, meaning this little burg was an actual incorporated city at that time.

Lambert Slough Bridge

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The Lambert Slough Bridge is one of the more obscure destinations the ongoing bridge project has visited (so far). Lambert Slough is a small side channel of the Willamette River, separating Grand Island from the west bank of the river, and this little bridge is the only way on or off the island. I figured I ought to at least take a photo of the bridge on my way to the state park on the island, since I'd already established that this project included bridges on the Willamette at least as far south as Salem, and bridges out to islands were fair game, since I'd done the Sauvie Island Bridge. So I pretty much had to do this one for the sake of completeness. And completeness it is, since with this I think I've covered every bridge as far as Salem, plus one in Eugene. Except for the Champoeg Road pipeline bridge near Newberg, and I've more or less convinced myself that it doesn't count.

As with the OR-219 bridge, there's no page for this bridge at BridgeHunter or Structurae or any of the usual bridge fan sites, but there is a page about it at UglyBridges.com. In which we learn it's a reinforced concrete deck girder bridge, built in 1964, and any historical significance was "not determinable at this time" as of 2009. At that time it was given a 64.2% structural sufficiency rating, which is decent (certainly compared to the Sellwood Bridge's 2% rating) but down from 87% in 1991, probably due to an increase in traffic -- although 428 vehicles per day still counts as light traffic, I think.

As mentioned in my earlier Grand Island post, the island is threatened by a proposed gravel mine, which is currently working its way through the courts and the county permit process. Since this bridge is the only way on or off the island, gravel mining would mean a steady stream of big gravel trucks. The county commissioned an engineering study of the bridge in 2010 that concluded the bridge could handle the truck traffic, although not everyone's pleased that Yamhill County would be on the hook for higher maintenance costs due to increased wear and tear.

Union Street Bridge

A slideshow on Salem's Union Street Bridge over the Willamette River. It was built as a railroad bridge in 1913, but the railroad abandoned it in the 1990s. The city of Salem later purchased it and converted it into a bike and pedestrian bridge. Which, as you can see in my earlier posts about the nearby Center Street and Marion Street bridges, is something that was sorely needed here. I visited on a cool, drizzly day with intermittent downpours, and even then there was a steady stream of people walking and biking across.

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If the design of the bridge looks familiar, it could be because it was designed by the Waddell & Harrington engineering firm, the same company behind the Hawthorne, Interstate, and Steel bridges in Portland. Unlike the bridges in Portland, the lift span on the Union St. Bridge no longer functions. In fact it hasn't been operational since at least 1980, when the railroad was still using the bridge.

There was a brief time in the late 1990s or early 2000s when it looked as if the lift span would have to be repaired, to accomodate the Willamette Queen river cruise ship during high river levels. I can't find a definitive link about the story, but as I recall under federal law the railroad would have had to put the lift span back into operation if any commercial user demanded it. However it turned out to be much cheaper to modify the riverboat, the only vessel that would have needed the lift span. Its smokestacks were the real obstacle, and they were actually purely decorative, so they were given hinges to fold down so the ship could fit under the bridge. As I said, I wish I had a link to pass along as I might have some of the details of the story wrong, but that's how the story played out as best as I can recall. Anyway, the lift span is another interesting relic of the brief era when commercial shipping was a dominant form of transportation across Oregon, before railroads and eventually cars and trucks assumed that role.

Since it's strictly a pedestrian and bike bridge, walking across is pretty pleasant, and there's a nice view of the river and the other bridges. You see a bit of the city too, but Salem has a fairly low-rise and unphotogenic skyline, apart from the state capitol, and the city just isn't oriented around the river to the same degree that Portland is. In addition to the bridge itself, on the West Salem side of the river you also cross a long elevated train trestle over land; I was coming from the downtown Salem side and turned around before walking the whole trestle (due to the whole intermittent downpours thing I mentioned), so I haven't personally seen where it ends up. The video I linked to above starts from the West Salem side, though, so you can see it that way, if you're curious.

Winter Falls, Silver Falls

A few photos of Winter Falls, in Silver Falls State Park. As the name suggests, it's much more impressive in the winter and comes rather close to drying up during the summer -- which unfortunately is when I went and took these photos. Even during the winter this waterfall isn't the main event at the park; North Falls and South Falls are the main attractions any time of year. I do actually have photos of them too, but I took a lot more of them and still haven't sorted through them all yet.

If you've ever wondered why I have so many posts covering second-tier attractions like this, and like nearby Upper North Falls, it's because I usually have fewer photos to sort through, and there's generally less source material to dig through while writing the post. In short, it's just easier. I always eventually get around to posting the good stuff, but usually not on any kind of reasonable schedule.

This month will hopefully be different though; several people I know observe November as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, in which you try to write an entire novel in 30 days. I'm not feeling remotely that ambitious right now, but I've set a somewhat more modest goal for the month, that of having an empty Drafts folder on 12/1, which is a situation I'm pretty sure I haven't had in at least 5 years (considering there's one oddball draft post that's been sitting there since March 2007). I do have draft posts there for North & South Falls, so you should expect to see those within the next few weeks, and if you don't, you're entitled to make fun of me, or at least to roll your eyes a little at the failure of my modest ambitions.

Lower McDowell Creek Falls

And here are a few photos of Lower McDowell Creek Falls, part of Linn County's McDowell Creek Falls County Park, east of Lebanon, OR. As you can see, it's really pretty small, not something you'd really go out of your way to see. But it's right next to the trail through the park, so you'll pass it on your way to Royal Terrace Falls, Crystal Pool Falls, and Majestic Falls, and the rest of the park. So if you're there to look at waterfalls, you might as well stop by so you've collected the whole set, so to speak.

The one tip I have to offer about the park as a whole is that if you go during the summer, there may not be a lot of water going over the falls. Most of the photos of this waterfall you'll see out on the net show much more water going over it, like this one, this one, and this one. You might also enjoy this 360 degree VR panorama at the falls at Whole Reality Photography.

Gibbs St. Pedestrian Bridge

A slideshow of the shiny new and long-awaited Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge, which crosses I-5 directly beneath the Portland Aerial Tram. It looks better than the design sketches I'd seen of it; the slight curve makes a big difference in it not looking like just another ugly overpass. The bridge was a long time coming: First there was a federal grant to obtain (which IIRC was originally supposed to rework the Naito Parkway overpass/intersection with SW Arthur St.). Once the money was finally in hand, the project finally kicked off, and it was time for an interminable Portland-style design process, and a parallel process of discovering what could and couldn't actually be built with the money on hand.

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The South Waterfront side of the bridge includes several flights of stairs to get down to street level, plus an elevator that's been in and out of service repeatedly in the months since the bridge opened. Which is a problem since, as a series of BikePortland posts note, the current bike gutters on the stairs aren't really up to the task.

I'm sure there are people whose daily commute was revolutionized by the new bridge, or it at least made it easier to get around as a pedestrian. The impact would undoubtedly be even greater if it was easier to get to the west side of the bridge, but the stretch of Naito between I-405 and Barbur was built as a limited access semi-freeway back in the 1940s, and getting across it involves one of various creepy tunnels under the street, and/or the old skybridge over to the Bermuda Triangle area (where the naturopathic college is located). A few years ago I wrote a couple of posts about the transportation issues in this part of town. I was a bit more wound up and snarky about things back then, so please take that into account, but my point there basically stands. In these days of austerity and shrinking budgets for everything, I'd be happy if they simply added a traffic signal or two (and crosswalks) on that part of Naito, for now. I haven't seen any recent discussion about doing that, though I admit to not paying close attention for the last couple of years or so. If we're lucky, maybe the new bridge will lead to pressure on the city to finally do something about the Naito situation.

Transcendence

Couple of photos of Transcendence, the salmon-smashing-through-a-building sculpture above the Southpark restaurant at SW Salmon & Park Ave. It's been around for years (and was there when the B. Moloch restaurant occupied the space), but I didn't realize it had a name or counted as Art until just recently; turns out it's by the same artist who did Portal (the arch made of a pair of large hammers) on 1st Ave. just south of downtown. His website has a better photo of Transcendence. It also shows up in a blog post at Travel for Aircraft, and in Flickr & Facebook photos beyond number (here are just 3 of them: [1] [2] [3] that I thought were decent).

While searching for info for this post, I ran across a Stumptown Stumper at the Tribune about yet another piece by the same guy, something called "Mimir" on NW 27th between Thurman & Upshur, near Macleay Park, described as "a combination of Norse mythology, gibberish, fish and space creature". Pretty sure I'm going to need to track it down now and take a few photos. Discovering new topics like this may be the very best part of this entire blogging racket.

leaf, dreamer fountain

lone fir, october 2012

cobwebs, lone fir

Cairns

Today's stop on the occasional tour of transit mall art takes us to the far north end of the transit mall, near Union Station, home to the scattered pieces of Cairns. From TriMet's Green Line public art guide:

To create her series of sculptures for the Union Station area, Christine Bourdette was inspired by the man-made stacks of stones that have traditionally served as landmarks for navigation and as memorials. Cairns consists of a series of five stacked-slate forms that mark the path to the light rail stations near Glisan at NW 5th and 6th.

I can't say I have a strong opinion either way about any of the individual cairns or the collection as a whole. Your eyes just tend to sort of gaze right past them. But up close you notice the texture of the stone, which I absolutely love. I see lots of search results for "stacked slate", which seems to mean pieces of slate split perpendicular to their natural grain. It's a neat look but possibly not an infinitely versatile one; a commercially available garden fountain I ran across looks just like Cairns, but smaller and with water spilling out the top.

Whistlestop for an Organ Teacher

The latest installment in our tour of transit mall art takes us to 5th Avenue between Morrison and Alder, next to Macy's (the former Meier and Frank store), home to Whistlestop for an Organ Teacher by Chris Bruch. TriMet's Green Line public art guide says of it:

Chris Bruch designed Whistlestop for an Organ Teacher to be a small island of stillness amidst the urban hubbub and dissonance of the city. Whistlestop refers to an earlier era when politicians campaigned across great distances from trains, while "stop," in organ terminology, means a rank of pipes that all speak with a similar voice.

The sculptor's website describes it differently:

This sculpture references pipe organs, particularly a windchest with three fanciful pipes. Intended to evoke sound and provide a quiet moment in an urban streetscape, it’s softly reflective surface picks up changes in light and color.

He also has a piece on the University of Washington campus titled Department of Forensic Morphology Annex. It looks kind of cool, just going by the two small photos I've seen of it, and I think I like it better than the piece TriMet bought. Although the UW one looks much too big to fit on Portland city sidewalks anyway, so it's sort of a moot point.

On a semi-related note, there are a few more photos of Whistlestop on the website of the Columbia River Theater Organ Society, since it's sort of relevant to their interests, more or less. The rest of the site is kind of interesting too.

Ghost Ship

The last stop on our tour of Esplanade art is Ghost Ship, which is probably my favorite of the group. It's probably due to the glass. The brief description on its name plaque reads:

"A glowing lantern against a grey sky - Ghost Ship pays homage to the many ships that have come through Portland, and the ones that have gone down in crossing the Columbia River Bar."

...although please note the blue sky in these photos. Anyway, the city parks Esplanade page has this to say:

The Ghost Ship by James Harrison, sited on the south end of the wall, is a grand lantern made of copperplate, copper bar, a stainless steel substructure, and fit with hundreds of prismatic pieces of art glass. It pays homage to the many ships that have come through Portland, and the ones that have gone down in crossing the Columbia River Bar.

A later piece by Harrison titled Stacks grew out of his work on Ghost Ship, and another titled Daahoud grew out of it in turn.

With that I'm all out of material about the piece itself, and Halloween's coming up in a few days, so let's talk about actual ghost ships instead. Wikipedia has a long list of ghost ships, real, suspected, and fictional, including the infamous Mary Celeste. I recall reading a story about the Mary Celeste as a kid, and having nightmares for a week afterward. More recently, the derelict Ryou-Un Maru showed up in Canadian and later US waters a year after being washed out to sea by the 2011 Tokohu earthquake & tsunami. After salvage attempts failed, the US Coast Guard sank the vessel with cannon fire to prevent it from posing a hazard to shipping.

The 1943 Val Lewton film The Ghost Ship isn't really about a ghost ship, or even about ghosts, but it's a tense and spooky film that's worth seeing. It doesn't appear to be public domain and so isn't available for free on YouTube, but in searching I ran across a couple of interesting videos about derelict vessels: The former USS Sachem and an abandoned riverboat, both near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Closer to home, longtime Portlanders may remember the old River Queen floating restaurant (a converted San Francisco & Puget Sound ferry boat) , which was moored near the Centennial Mills building in what's now the Pearl District. The restaurant closed in 1995 and the vessel was towed to a remote dock on the Columbia near Goble. It's remained there ever since, awaiting a buyer.

Stack Stalk

The next piece of Esplanade art is "Stack Stalk", a tall skinny object near Alluvial Wall. The description from its sign:

"Part smoke stack, part sheaf of wheat - Stack Stalk is a beacon holding a Japanese glass fishing float from the coast up to the sky."

The city's page about the Esplanade says:

At the north end, Stack Stalk, also by Ean Eldred, is a hybrid beacon - part masthead, part wheat stem, part smokestack. Made of rolled steel tubes and a stainless steel basket, it suspends a Japanese glass fishing float in the sky as a reminder of the river's connection with the Pacific Ocean.

If anything there's even less on the interwebs about Stack Stalk than for Alluvial Wall. It got a quick mention in a Willamette Week Dr. Know column a while back, in which Orville B. of Portland asks why so much local art is so phallic-looking. A post at Culture Shock elaborates on that and includes photos. Of the art, I mean. I would imagine that, even today, a substantial majority of public art commissions go to male artists, so that might have something to do with it. Or it could all be a big case of pareidolia, except with genitalia instead of faces. Could be, could be. Dunno.

Alluvial Wall

This humble blog's occasional public art tour ventures across the river to visit a cluster of related pieces on the Eastbank Esplanade. I actually wrote a post about Echo Gate way back in July 2006. I either didn't realize it was part of a grouping, or it just didn't occur to me at the time that I was embarking on a Project that would involve posting about the others. Or it's also possible that my camera ran out of juice or its SD card was full after Echo Gate. Both problems happened a lot back in the old days. Truly, it was a dark and primitive time.

Anyway, today's first stop is "Alluvial Wall", which wraps around a bend in the Esplanade path about midway between the Hawthorne and Morrison bridges. The sign next to the piece describes it thusly:

"Interwoven layers of sediment and erosion - Alluvial Wall is an echo of the natural shape of the river before Portland was Portland."

The city parks page for the Esplanade explains further:

The final piece, the Alluvial Wall by Peter Nylen, clings to a concrete retaining wall and echoes the natural shape of the river before Portland was Portland. It alludes to the interwoven layers of the river’s pre-industrial geology and human artifacts; an amalgam of sedimentation and erosion formed of cold-forged steel plate with bronze castings lodged between its layers.

The Smithsonian's art inventory says simply:

Abstract wall sculpture made with slender horizontal bars intersected by slender vertical bars.

A recent public art guide to central Portland expands the credit to "RIGGA (Ean Eldred, James Harrison, John Kashiwabara, Peter Nylen) 2001", and lists its materials as "mild steel, bronze, electric light", although I can't vouch for the electric light.

I've run across a few other links with photos to pass along. Not as many as I was expecting, considering how many people walk, run, or bike past Alluvial Wall on a daily basis. I should probably take that as a sign this public art thing is a strange little project, and an interest that's shared by relatively few people. Or maybe I just need to search harder. Tumblr and Instagram and DeviantART could be absolutely full of hip, moody photos of it and you wouldn't necessarily know just from searching with Google. In any case, check out the photos at 500px, DLMark.net, and ExplorePDX. The photos are pretty tiny in the last one, but they do pick up on some angles I didn't notice during my brief visit. I'm already planning a trip back to take more photos, this time bringing the DSLR and not just my phone, as nice as it may be by phone standards.