Gresham Main Avenue Postcard

More about this item

Identifier

ghs20140080024

Description

Black and white photo postcard of Gresham Main Avenue looking north from just north of Powell. The Congdon Hotel is on the left; Bartelt's Mercantile is the two-story wooden structure visible in the background on the right side. Main Avenue is a dirt road with sidewalks. The postcard was mailed to Alice Peterson in Shaw, Oregon. The note says "I got a football and a pair of roller skates. Have you heard that Barteltes Store has burn down. I am getting along fine in school. How are you Orville D."

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ No Copyright

Location

Gresham, Multnomah County, Oregon, United States

Date

1915-01-21

Names

Davidson, Orville

Peterson, Alice

Subject

Historic Downtown Gresham

Fires

Commercial streets

Clothing stores

General stores

Street scenes

Provenance

The fire that Orville Davidson refers to in the note occurred on the night of December 22, 1914. A faulty wood stove overheated, causing a fire on the first floor of Bartelt's Mercantile that eventually consumed the entire building and the block to the west. There were no fatalities, although volunteer firefighters responding to the blaze suffered electrocution from downed power lines. It was one of the largest fires in the small town's history and led to a renewed focus on fireproof brick construction in Gresham's commercial center. While the note was written in January 1915, the photo was taken earlier, as many of the buildings appearing in it were destroyed in the fire.
Donated by Norma Davidson in 2014.

Type

StillImage

Medium

Postcard, Picture

Item sets

Gresham Heritage