The Wil / Wal Controversy


From Cascades frozen gorges
Leaping like a child at play,
Winding, widening through the valley,
Bright Willamette glides away
Onward ever,
Lovely river,
Softly calling to the sea;
Time, that scars us,
Maims and mars us,
Leave no track or trench on thee...

-From Beautiful Willamette, (1868) by Samuel L. Simpson.

When doomed Samuel L. Simpson, Oregon's first poet laureate, wrote Beautiful Willamette, he had a choice as to what form of name to address his muse. A dozen or so variants in spelling and pronunciation, dating from the exploration and early settlement eras, had winnowed down to two leading contenders: Willamette and Wallamet.

In the decade that followed, a protracted public debate ensued, with supporters of each name arguing passionately for legitimacy- "The Wil / Wal Controversy."




The steamboat Wallamet, circa 1854.


The question first appeared in the Oregonian on April 5, 1857, seventeen years before the height of the controversy. The article: Wallamet or Willamette etc etc, noted:

"The orthography of our far-famed valley is curiously unsettled, like a good many other things in a newly settled country. The "University Press," the Statesman, Fremont, the first bound volume of Oregon laws, the pronunciation of the early settlers, following the natives, make it Wallamet. Wilkes, following the Frenchified of some romantic scribblers of the East, has it Willamette."

The Statesman was the Salem newspaper, John Charles Fremont a western explorer, and Charles Wilkes was the leader of the first U.S. Navy expedition to the Pacific Coast.

"We rather think the Wallamets will in the end have it."




Portland in the 1870s.

"Among the fir clad hills and broad rich valleys of Oregon, the bucolic instinct still lingers. Of the 100,000 people who constitute the permanent population of Oregon, fully four fifths of them dwell not in town or village, but upon farms. Yet the commercial metropolis of Oregon, Portland-on-Wallamet is the second town of importance on the Pacific Coast. Next to San Francisco the capital of commerce of the Pacific Slope will center in this solid and respectable Oregon town."

-The Overland Monthly, July 1868.





Judge Matthew P. Deady


The author of the Overland Monthly article was U.S. District Court Judge Matthew P. Deady of Portland, a Wallamet adherent, some would say zealot. That same year he wrote in the San Francisco Bulletin:


"The word is of Indian origin, and as they have no written language the early settlers of this country caught the pronunciation from them and gave it an English orthography."


He noted that it was spelled differently by different people and listed three variants: Wallamet, Whalamet, and Wallamut. As for Willamette, he believed it derived from a mistaken belief the name had its origins with the French Canadian voyageurs employed by the the Hudson's Bay fur company.

By the time of Deady's writings, Willamette was the more common name in use. Evidence of its continued ascent could be found in Wallamet University changing the spelling of its name to Willamette University in 1870.




Judge Jesse Quinn Thornton



In Our River and Its Name (the Oregonian on March 11 1870), Jesse Quinn Thornton, a former Territorial Supreme Court Justice, wrote:


"...there does not appear to be, even among educated persons, any uniformity as to the method of spelling the name of the valley, which is by far the richest and most interesting portion of our state."

He came down on the side of Wallamet:

"The word itself is of Indian origin, purely aboriginal" and referred to the "miscalled Willamette University," a sentiment he expanded upon in a second piece on April 20 1870:

"It ought not be forgotten that this University was built up by the early missionaries, upon the foundation of an Indian mission school; and that the same missionaries procured for it a charter, designating it as Wallamet University- not the affected and fanciful French name of Willamette University.





Judge William Strong

Thornton's letter was met with a rebuttal by William Strong, a fellow retired Territorial Supreme Court justice, who advocated for Willamette in the Daily Herald, March 13, 1870.

Strong doubted the name had a Native American origin. If it did, he thought it unlikely used for the entire river. He cited the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition which referred to the river below the falls as the Multnomah.

He believed the word had French roots, referencing a letter from George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Bishop of Quebec in 1838.

He also related a "charming legend" of three French boys named Guilliam (William), who once lived along the river; thus the Guillamette (little Guilliam's) River, anglicized to Willamette.





The Wallamat, or Multnomah River flows deep into the eastern reaches of the Oregon Country in this 1825 map. Multnomah is from the Chinook word for downriver: nematlnomaq.


The Wil / Wal Controversy began in earnest with the publication of the State Code in September 1874 which adhered, as all prior ones had, to the Wallamet name. Complaints on its usage in the Oregon legislature prompted Judge Deady to write The True Name of Our Beautiful River in the Oregonian, October 15 1874.

Again, he pronounced a possible French origin of the name as in error:

"The use of Wallamet can be traced back to the early part of this century when the country first became known to white people. It is an Indian word, and the true and original name of the river, while Willamette is an ignorant and anonymous fabrication or a modern corruption of the former."

He cited numerous early sources in support of Wallamet and its variants, including Dr. John McLoughlin (in documents from 1844) and Alexander Ross (reminiscences on his arrival in 1811, published in 1840). Deady concluded:

"...admitting that no one is bound by authority in this matter and that we are at liberty to adopt whatever name we may fancy, we should chose the old name by all means. As between it and the modern, spurious one, there is no comparison in point of strength, dignity or euphony. Willamette has a thin, close, meagre sound, and a petty, foppish appearance, while the broad, full sounding Wallamet is every way worthy of the incomparable and beautiful river shall yet be known as the paradise of the Pacific."




Archbishop of Oregon, Francis Norbert Blanchet


Archbishop Francis Norbert Blanchet had written on the subject as "An Old Pioneer" in 1870. He returned to it under his own name and title in a letter to Governor L.F. Grover, published in the Oregonian, October 7 1874.

He recalled that upon his arrival in the Oregon Country in 1838, Wallamette was the only name used for the river and that Willamette came into broad use some time after 1850. The loss of the final te from Wallamet was "warranted by no tradition or authority whatsoever." As for Willamette, it was a "change or mutation" that was allowed to spread unchecked by early settlers. He ended with:

"Is there still any chance for restoring to our river, and its valley, this old and time honored name? If there be, please make use of the present to obtain it."




The Willamette River flows through Portland in 1852.


Judge William Strong returned to the fray, with a defense of Willamette and an attack on Judge Deady, in the Daily Bulletin, October 22 1874:

"When a new code is prepared by the Judge (Deady), it produces a newspaper controversy upon this subject, which seems to establish the strong presumption that the name Wallamet is not and never will be accepted by the people. This may be the reason why he persists in his effort to change the name. He seems to have a mania for reform of a sensational character."

The word had "no marks of an Indian word, no guttural or sibilant sounds- which abound in Indian languages." Its termination was "indicative to a French Canadian origin." Even if there had been a change to Willamette in the 1840s, it was at:

"...about the time when we first began to have authentic accounts of the river from educated and intelligent persons; and if such a change did take place at the time it was the result of American settlement, and a change from barbarism to civilization."

After an exhaustive list of Willamette precedents, he concluded:

"The name is too well fixed in the public mind now to be changed, even it were objectionable in point of taste. But I contend that Willamette is as much better taste than Wallamet as Mississippi and Virginia are in better taste than Mass-a-sap and Varginny."



Francis Fuller Victor

Francis Fuller Victor, author of The River of the West: The Adventures of Joe Meek, and numerous later works of Oregon history, was drawn into the controversy after being miss-quoted by Judge Strong. She wrote:

"From my first entrance into Oregon, about ten years ago, I have been an interested and industrious student of everything relating to the country, and among other things, what research could be made into the subject of Indian names, both for the sake of the subject itself, and in greater measure for the sake of accuracy in writing it. My researches led me to the following conclusions:

First, that the Indians never gave names to rivers as a whole, but instead used descriptive words in speaking of certain localities; hence that, on this plan, every river had various names, according as it was rapid, or deep, or clear, or stained, or had a fertile or barren shore etc..."

Citing the word whah meant to spill, or pour, in Native languages west of the Cascades, she found it likely that Whalla-mut referred to either the falls at Oregon City, or the place where the river flowed into the Columbia, or the region between both points.

"After careful consideration, I adopted the "Wallamet" spelling as retaining the sound of the original word, and at the same time deferring to an English notion of orthography, since all our Indian words are more or less anglicized."



Joseph Gale, writing from Eagle Creek, had come to similar conclusions on Native usage of the word:

"The Indians have more poetic talent than we are aware of, and this word is used by them as an adjective to describe the river, not as a noun merely to name it."




E.W.Reynolds sides with his Democratic friend, Judge William Strong. -The Oregonian, November 12 1874.


The controversy drew letters and readers to Portland newspapers. More than just a scholarly parlor game among the learned, it reflected social and political divisions, such as when James O'Meara, editor of Ben Holladay's paper, the Daily Bulletin, needed distance from Judge Deady for political reasons and opted to change his stance on Will / Wall to allow a sundering that concealed his true motives.

Readers lined up behind Judge Strong or Judge Deady. The exchange became heated. Strong lampooned Deady as "the only gentleman who hailed from Portland-on-Wallamet." Deady fired back at Strong's "silly little legend of the three French Willies." Strong had "committed gross and unpardonable error." Deady was "so very particular to criticize small mistakes, even those which can have no real bearing upon the real merits of the question." Strong had "fallen into pleasant delusion" and "relied upon his imagination for facts." Deady had a "mania" on the issue (Strong might have had him there).


"Judge Strong is a volunteer in this controversy, and it is his duty to inform himself before he undertakes to teach others." -The Oregonian, from Judge Deady's Reply to Judge Strong's Second Letter, November 20 1874.


To vitriol was added virtuosity as each side piled precedent upon precedent to make their case. Explorers accounts, linguistic tracts, pioneer reminiscences, maps, old deeds, receipts and legal transcripts were produced and duly cataloged as arguments continued into 1875.

After the controversy had played out, it was generally thought Wallamet was proved to be the older name and that it had Native American origins, but Willamette was by far more prevalent and accepted, a dissonance that prompted William Lair Hill, in the Oregonian, March 6 1875, to opine:

"But since Wil-lamette has become the more frequent form, in usage, would it not be well to accept the change? That is a question on which people may differ. Those who think it is desirable to preserve the original names of places and prominent physical objects in the country will take the negative; those who do not think so will take the affirmative."

The controversy generated so much interest that thirteen of the most noted letters from 1874-75, along with five from the initial skirmish of 1870, were gathered by George Himes in Wallamet or Willamette, a sixty six page book published in May 1875.





On June 1st 1876, six years after Willamette University changed from Wallamet University, the school reverted to its original name for a day when Judge Matthew Deady addressed its graduating class.



The final volley in the exchange took place nearly a quarter century later. On November 25 1895, two years after Deady's death and eight after Strong's, the Oregonian published Wallamet, A Post Script to an Old Controversy by Richard Hopwood Thornton, which drew attention to Captain Nathaniel Portlock's Voyage Around the World (1789) as the earliest source of the word in print. Portlock described seeing daggers purchased by the Indians of Puget Sound at "Wallamute."

The book, a copy of which was in the Portland Library, had miraculously escaped detection during the controversy (today it resides in the John Wilson Special Collections room at the Multnomah County library).

The revelation did not revive the debate, which was itself was receding into history. Wallamet was becoming a quaint anachronism, while Willamette, certainly by the publication of Lewis A. McArthur's Oregon Geographic Names in 1928, had achieved the status (apologies to Judge Deady) of stare decisis.



This post is dedicated to John Terry, member of the Oregon Geographic Names board and author of the Oregon Trails column in the Oregonian, which was sadly discontinued last Sunday. The column has been a favorite of mine for years. It did much to develop my belief that history is not something that just happens somewhere else. Thanks John!

-Dan Haneckow, Portland-on-Wallamet, December 29 2011.

(...the surname is of eastern German origin. The c was mysteriously added in America, decades after its arrival. The name ends with a long o sound, along the lines of Paltrow).

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The Sculpture Beneath 4th Avenue



"Times change- This might not be right." So wrote the map's prior owner in the margins under item #23, an entry that purported the existence of a "Underground Sculpture."





Downtown Portland A Walking Tour Map with Guide to Points of Interest was issued, complements of Lipman's department store and First National Bank of Oregon, some time between the dedication of O'Bryant Square in December 1973 (item #32 "One of the newest additions to downtown's collections of parks...") and the opening of the Galleria (absent on the map) in 1976.







It provides of a glimpse of a watershed moment, when the Downtown Plan of 1972 began to produce tangible results, and of a Portland both familiar and alien. Benson Bubblers, the Dekum and Commonwealth buildings, Portland Art Museum, the Pioneer Courthouse and City Hall are highlighted, as well as landmarks of today with different names: Chown Electric (Kell's) the First National Bank Tower (Wells Fargo) and the Forecourt Fountain (Keller).





Backwaters are brought to forefront: The Portland Center (item #1) and Lovejoy Fountain (item #2). Some entrees, such as the Equitable Center (Unitus Plaza today) and Morgan's Alley remain, their prominence forgotten. Others are gone (the Yamhill Market), some practically from memory (the Mowhawk Galleries and Annex on the block bounded by SW 2nd, 3rd, Yamhill and Morrison).






Among the latter, I consigned the "Underground Sculpture." Surely it could not still be in place, unremarked, today. But what was its story? Where was it now?






The Georgia Pacific building under construction, on the block bounded by SW Salmon, Taylor, 4th and 5th, in 1968. -Marion Dean Ross Photograph, University of Oregon Libraries, Building Oregon collection.



The eight foot tall sculpture of pressed formed and chrome-plated steel, by Oregon artist Bruce West, was installed in its subterranean home in August 1973, five years after the completion of the Georgia Pacific building. Its last mention in the Oregonian was on February 1st 1981, from a walking tour for for families titled Making the City Your Playground. A year later, Georgia Pacific moved its corporate headquarters to Atlanta Georgia.

Beyond that time, I could not find reference of it anywhere.






I checked a Google Maps satellite view. There was a parking garage across 4th from the Georgia Pacific building, today known as the Standard Insurance Center, but it looked of more recent vintage than its towering neighbor. Did it replace an older structure? If so, had the connecting tunnel been filled in?

Alternate narratives formed in my mind. Did Georgia Pacific take the sculpture with them when they moved to Atlanta? Was it donated to the Portland Art Museum? Perhaps it sat in the lobby of the Standard Insurance Center, or in someones sculpture garden.

There was a way to find out.

I went to the parking garage at SW 4th and Salmon. I Followed the map's instructions and walked to the elevator. There was indeed a "C" level. I pressed the button and descended. The doors opened into a florescent lit corridor. I turned right and started walking. A short distance later the floor angled downward.






It stood facing between mirrors that created an infinity of gleaming silver sculptures. I was the only person there. The silence fostered an illusion of stopped time. Unlike an outdoor sculpture it had acquired no patina with age, it was pristine. It was still August 1973, art for automobile commuters, two months before the Oil Embargo.

I noticed how the mirrors opened up a space which otherwise would be too small for the piece's scale. I thought about the traffic on 4th Avenue passing unheard above my head, and of Richard Nixon. It had been there all along. It seemed so unlikely.

Times change. The sculpture had not.




Downtown Portland without Max, the Bus Mall or Pioneer Courthouse Square but with Front Avenue and Fareless Square.

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Half Life




A visit to Old Portland Hardware and Architectural on SE 41st and Division is a chance to view the unexpected re-emergence of a cache from one of Portland's vanished architectural treasures; the Ladd Block (1881) knocked down in a storm of controversy in 1965. The story of its demolition and the dispersal of its pieces is one of reverence and disregard, back and forth, played out over the course of a half century.


"Among the edifices particularly worthy of mention are: The three story brick building on the northwest corner of First and Columbia, for Mr. W.S. Ladd. Special pains were taken by the architect, Mr. Justus Krumbein, to make the building equal if not superior in point of strength to any in the city." -The Oregonian, January 1 1882.



The Ladd Block, drawing by, and courtesy of William Hawkins III.

William Sargent Ladd's excursion into what is now called mixed use development was on Columbia, five blocks east of his mansion, and First, nine blocks south of his Ladd & Tilton Bank. On the ground level was space for four retail stores. The second floor held four large residences, laid out in the "French flat" system, each with two bedrooms, a parlor, dining room, kitchen, pantry, bathroom, closets and a separate staircase and exit. The top floor was divided into single rooms and suites for hotel purposes. The exterior was styled "modern Gothic" with cast-iron and tin architectural details and a menagerie of wolves, lions and bears standing watch on the upper levels. Sturdy, state of the art and fireproof, the Oregonian anticipated that it would still be standing when Portland's population reached five hundred thousand people.

In 1891, a hotel, the Ladd House, operated on the upper floors, offering furnished rooms for five dollars a piece and housekeeping rooms for three. In a possible reflection of First street's change in status over the prior decade as downtown moved west, its proprietor, Mary E. Baker, was accused of operating a brothel there in 1895. The hotel closed soon after.


"The Ladd House has the reputation of being a "graft house," a rendezvous for petty thieves and criminal of the lowest type, and particularly as an abiding place for slaves of morphine, cocaine and opium. Worse still, the officers say, that women of the lowest type resort there with male outcasts of society, and together they hold orgies that beggar description." -The Oregonian, April 6 1895.


A second hotel, the Villa House, opened on the premises a decade later. Its proprietor, Andrew C. Wald, was succeeded in 1914 by Tojiro Haji, the first of four Japanese-American hoteliers, followed by F.M. Isoshima (1920 to 1926), George K. Kawaguchi (1926 to 1930) and H.K. Uyesugi (1930 to 1942). There is likely a significance to the year of his departure.

Over the years various business occupied the store fronts on the ground floor, such as Sam Margulies's Saloon (circa 1911), Victors Cash Grocery (circa 1916) and the American Chili Parlors (circa 1928). In the 1950s a second hand store occupied the corner storefront at First and Columbia.




The Ladd Block in the 1950s. -Marion Dean Ross photo, Building Oregon Collection, University of Oregon.





Detail of above, of the second hand store on First and Columbia. On the once ubiquitous second hand business in the old downtown, Sam Raddon Jr. in the 1946 book Portland Vignettes, wrote: "There is color and atmosphere still, in the district that has seen better times, where the shop-keeper and his friend may sit in the shade of a summer afternoon, and talk of the affairs that effect their own little world. Where business comes from no one pretends to know. But year in and year out the routine goes on. The dust of a generation may seem to have accumulated on stock and trade, but occasionally, at least someone must sell, and someone else must buy."


The Villa House closed in 1963. For the next two years the building, owned by the Boyd Coffee Company, sat vacant. The stage was set for one of Portland's most notorious episodes of historic desecration.




Drawing in the Oregonian, February 20 1965.


On February 19 1965 the Portland Development Commission released an "area guide plan" for the blocks bounded by SW Front, 4th, Market and Salmon, immediately north of the South Auditorium Urban Renewal project. Unlike the scorched earth approach pursued with South Auditorium, which stripped the district even of its street grid, the "guide plan" proposed some rehabilitation in the existing neighborhood. Specifically cited for renovation were the "ancient iron front buildings" the Ladd and Monastes Blocks, on the west side of First, between Columbia and Jefferson.

The PDC's suggestion spurred the Boyd Coffee Company, whose office and plant bordered the buildings to the west, to contract with the Western Wrecking Company, to quickly demolish the structures.



"Fearing harassment by city agencies, or by concerned citizens, the owners of Boyd Coffee Company, who wanted to make room for a new warehouse, opted for the "midnight disappearance" strategy of demolition. Almost overnight, the half block Ladd building became a paved parking lot." -The Grand Era of Cast-Iron Architecture in Portland Oregon by William Hawkins III.


In response to the public outcry over the demolition, Mrs. V.B. Younger, secretary-treasurer of the Boyd Coffee Company, stated the city had ordered the buildings be bought up to code or demolished. Architects had been consulted and the cost to remodel the buildings was found to be prohibitive. She noted that the drawing (above) that had appeared in the Oregonian was for dramatic example, not to be taken literally.

"There is no condemnation order against the buildings." -Portland Mayor Terry Shrunk in the Oregonian, March 12 1965.

"I resent the fact that the owner appears to passing the onus to the city, by claiming he was ordered to raise the buildings." -Francis J. Murnane, Portland Art Commission in the Oregonian, March 12 1965.





Wolf head ornament from the upper level of the Ladd Block, donated to the Architectural Heritage Center by Christopher Boyd.


The long half life of the Ladd Block began when Bob Hazen, President of the Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan, was walking by the demolition site when he noted its metal pieces. With no particular use in mind, he asked a workman if he could purchase some of them. A price of three thousand dollars was agreed upon. They were removed to a warehouse for storage.

Ten years later, a use for the pieces was found when the Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan purchased a newly completed office tower, across the street on First from the site of the Ladd Block, for its corporate headquarters. On the top floor Bob Hazen outfitted a luxurious executive suite that utilized the Ladd Block's fixtures.

To create his 19th century haven on the 19th floor, Hazen consulted with Portland preservationist Eric Ladd to create a most unlikely office space, complete with a stained glass ceiling from the Washington Hotel, made surplus after most of its lobby was converted into courtyard, and a stairwell mural of the Ladd Block by William Hawkins (from the drawing at the beginning of this post). Decorative tin and ironwork were re-purposed as book cases to surprisingly good effect. A statue of Benjamin Franklin, and a receptionist dressed as Dolly Madison completed the eclectic, if somewhat surreal, scene.





The 19th Floor, with ceiling from the Washington Hotel and a column from the Ladd Block.





Two years later, in 1977, a column from the Ladd Block, from the Portland's Friends of Cast Iron Architecture's collection, was mounted in the new pedestrian arcade at Ankeny Square which showcased the area's cast iron heritage.


When the Benj. Franklin closed in 1990 Bob Hazen's office suite was dismantled with the pieces donated to the Bosco-Milligan Foundation. Some can be seen today in the Architectural Heritage Center's Rebuilding South Portland exhibit.





Ladd Block piece at the Architectural Heritage Center.




The recently removed courtyard installation in the former Benj. Franklin Plaza. Sadly, the whereabouts of the lions are unknown.


Until recently there were remnants of Bob Hazen's cast-iron confection, nearly forgotten, in the 19th floor courtyard and lobby of the building now known at the Umpqua Bank Plaza. It is those pieces that have appeared at Old Portland Hardware after being removed in a recent remodel. Upon being contacted by the project's architect, Bret Hodgert and Scott at Old Portland had very little time to wheel the fixtures, some weighing hundreds of pounds, downstairs to a loading dock, which happily was higher than their flat bed truck.

"When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more to be that archeologist in National Geographic. It was kind of like that." -Bret Hodgert of Old Portland Hardware, on obtaining the Ladd Block pieces from the remodel site.




Bear from the Ladd Block at Old Portland Hardware and Architectural.

For a short time the Ladd Block pieces can be seen in three places: the Architectural Heritage Center, Ankeny Square and Old Portland Hardware. Save for those at AHC their long term status is in flux, as the Old Portland pieces are for sale, and a possible revamp of Ankeny Square, mentioned in 2009, which might replace the current installation with a new twelve columned structure.




Signage at Ankeny Square, this one describing the Ladd Block has deteriorated badly.






A fence, later added to protect the Fire Fighters exhibit, effectively cut the cast-iron display in half.



The situation at Ankeny Square symbolizes Portland's relationship with its past, the seesawing between veneration and neglect, with no way to predict the next swing. Will the revamp, which might include restrooms and a information kiosk ever take place? Will the existing cast iron on the wall be removed to storage after the new arcade, essentially a zero sum game, or will the be refurbished (and hopefully repainted in something other that the odd choice of back)? What of the rest of the trove of cast-iron, owned by the PDC, that is stored under a bridge? Forty-six years after after the loss of one of the last major cast-iron building to be demolished, the questions remain on how to best re-purpose Portland's iron age remnants.





Proposed Ankeny Square revamp. Perhaps a return to Vine Street? -The Portland
Mercury.





First and Columbia, site of the Ladd Block, one of the few surface parking lots lost to new construction.



The Ladd and Monastes Blocks, looking north on First from Columbia in the 1950s. -Marion Dean Ross photo, Building Oregon Collection, University of Oregon.





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High Water!





On Monday, October 17 at the Mission Theater at 7:00pm I will be presenting High Water; Portland and the Flood of 1894 for the Oregon Encyclopedia's History Night.

From the press release:

On May 27, 1894, the rising Willamette River began to flow into the streets of Portland. For one month, Portland, already reeling from the financial crash of 1893, was inundated by floodwaters. City life came to a halt, then adapted with flotillas of small boats for shopping and spindly bridges that spanned between second floors. Fire engines were towed through the streets on barges, and the bars moved onto rafts. The receding water left the city a hellish, stinking mess.

Dan Haneckow explores Portland of the 1890s and its watery ordeal with stunning images of the "Metropolis of the Northwest" as it dealt with one of its greatest challenges.

Hope to see you there!

This is Not Historic




The Jackals welcome in 1989 at Satyricon. -Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.



Soon the Hotel West, better known as the Satyricon and the Kiernan building, aka the Dirty Duck, will be demolished.

The loss of Satyricon, a Portland equivalent to the Cavern Club, exposes the weakness of Portland's ability to identify and protect its historic resources. Too often a structure's historic value is determined by the context of when it was built, not its significance acquired over time. A century from now, looking back at the 1980s, Portlanders will likely still have the Portland Building, a structure of architectural significance but of dubious communal connection, but not Satyricon.




NW 6th from Couch, May 1985. Henry's- Working Man's Friend (later the Sav-Mor Grub, blown up along with its neighbor to the north in 1989) Portland Tattoo, Demetri's Grocery, the Hotel West / Satyricon (arched doorway) and the Butte Hotel. The Butte Hotel sign still hangs in place, now hidden by ubiquitous street trees.
-Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.



To those who view streetscapes as a form of narrative, Portland will be a poorer place without Satyricon, the Dirty Duck or the Galaxy restaurant at SE 9th and Burnside. Each will be replaced by structures in the approved contemporary du jour, devoid of continuity with their surroundings.





A proposed replacement for the Hotel West / Satyricon. Described in a recent Portland Architecture piece by Fred Leeson, it recreated the general look of its predecessor on the first floor. It was not to be.


In the case of the Hotel West, there was a significant effort to echo and honor the site's history architecturally by the Macdonald Center in their proposed design for the building's replacement.

The plan was found unacceptable by the Portland Design Commission, preferring a slate scraped clean of prior reference for new development. Commissioner David Keltner noted that new buildings can be compatible with, yet clearly differentiated from older neighbors, if not, "You don't have a clear understanding of what's what, and what is historical".

This philosophy, with its built in preference for contemporary forms, risks an antiseptic downtown; a pleasant enough tree-lined doldrum with the spontaneity and depth of a gated community. It dilutes the uniqueness of individual streetscapes in favor of accepted standards bereft of prior local context.




Pearl District refugee?

Nowhere is this better illustrated, to almost comic effect, than by the recent structure beneath the west end of the Burnside Bridge. Located a few yards away from where First, Ankeny and Vine intersected at the Skidmore Fountain, the core of Portland's original cast-iron fronted downtown, it sits like a Design Within Reach catalog backdrop in opposition to the area's historic character. It was a squandered opportunity to utilize cast-iron fixtures already owned by the city that languish in storage.





Last chance to see. The Kiernan building (aka the Dirty Duck) at NW Third and Glisan. -Dan Haneckow photo.


Its arguable that a successful building need only to fulfill its function. Aesthetics, context and history are of secondary importance to owners - but are primary concerns of design and landmark advisory bodies. In Portland, the interplay of the Design Commission, the Historic Landmarks Commission and the City Council have much to say about what is historic and what is acceptable for the city's built environment's design, as illustrated below by the Kiernan building:





The intersection of Third and Glisan, prior to the 1916 construction of the Kiernan building. The earlier structure on the site supported an impressive array of billboards. The Shasta Hotel and the future home to the Blanchet House are to the right. Until 1912 the original Steel Bridge descended to street level on Third, just to the right of the frame.
-Christopher Wilson collection, courtesy of John Klatt, Old Oregon Photos.





The Kiernan building (and Pike Tent and Awning) looking northwest on 3rd in October 1980. Intentionally or not, its low profile echoed that of the prior building on the site. Despite a long, varied history involving numerous communities (see the post Ducking the Questions) it was found by the City Council not to be historic enough for preservation. -Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.





The Blanchet House's original plan for the Kiernan building site. Just as the Design Commission rejected the Macdonald Center's plans for the Hotel West / Satyricon on design grounds, the Blanchet House's plan was turned by by Historic Landmark Commission as out of character with the neighborhood.




The design for the Blanchet House that was approved by the Historic Landmarks Commission. While not particularly out of character with its historic surroundings, it is a missed chance to incorporate the original structure, or to have traded out a nearby city owned parking lot and thus live up to Portland's sustainability rhetoric. Still, it avoids the problems of other compromises for the sake of compatibility, such as the base of the Ladd Tower on the Park Blocks, more appropriate to Bridgeport Village than downtown Portland.




The loss of Satyricon and the Kiernan building illustrate the need for a new dialog about what is historic in Portland, not just with an eye to the past, but to what will be held significant in the future. This is especially true in regards to sites pertaining to local culture and communities not traditionally represented by landmarks. In the case of Satyricon, its importance, musically and as a representation of its era, was likely obscured by the fact that it was too recent to be considered history.

It is too late to save, but we can learn from its demise.








The look and feel of a city does not just happen. Do the preferences of the Design Commission reflect that of the public's? Above, the planned replacement for the Galaxy restaurant at SE 9th and Burnside.




Low slung commercial / light industrial buildings like the Kiernan began to appear in what had been known as the North End during the early decades of the 20th century. This building, along the Great Light Way, at Third and Davis still exists, the former home of the Kida Company. Today although much modernized, it could clean up quite nicely.
-Charles Ertz photo, courtesy of Gary Smith, via Marylou Colver.







NW Couch and 6th, the aftermath of the August 24 1989 bombing of Sav-Mor Grub, still an unsolved mystery. The Hotel West / Satyricon is to the far right.
-Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.






M99 at Satyricon, April 15 1991.
-Photo by and courtesy of Thomas Robinson, Historic Photo Archive.




Thanks to Christopher Wilson, John Klatt, Gary Smith, Marylou Colver and Thomas Robinson!



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