Couch Park has amazing trees—40 different species. Our current snowstorm drew my attention back to our local arboretum. According to the Couch Park 2003 Master Plan, “The variety and beauty of the many trees in the park are its most valuable resource.” Tree maven Phyllis Reynolds, an amazing historian, botanist, and author, helped write “The Trees of Couch Park”. But the history represented on the map left out an interesting reason for the park’s tree diversity.
The variety of trees is not just the results of planting efforts by Portland’s elite. The exotic trees were planted as part of the marketing of the North Pacific Sanatorium (1901–10), an adaptive reuse effort that repurposed the Levi White residence. The facility was rebranded as the Portland Convalescent Home (1911–12). As the wealthy recovered in this post-hospital care facility with top doctors, the grounds were planted with amazing trees from around the world. The sanatorium (a sanitarium is a health resort) operated on two full city blocks. 
Sanatoriums advertised themselves in the Polk Directories (the old-fashioned version of the white and yellow pages); this one’s advertisement read: “Grounds covering nearly two blocks, beautifully adorned by more than a hundred varieties of ornamental trees and shrubs, gathered at great expense from every continent of the globe. Rugged and picturesque scenery with four eternally snow-capped mountains (Mts. Hood-Adams-Rainer and St. Helens), with the beautiful Willamette River and the busy harbor of Portland to claim attention and cheer the view presented from the Sanitarium, a private hospital owned and controlled by medical men.” Guest also sent out postcards with images of the facility much like one would expect of a hotel rather than an assisted care center. Interest in more history of Couch Park head over to our blog.
Answer: “Fordham Heights is situated at the head of Lovejoy and Northrup streets”
The corner storefront of the building at NW 23rd and Northrup has stood unoccupied since Quality Pie shut its doors in 1992. Fans of lost Portland’s eccentric nightlife have created a Facebook group with 298 members (
Quality Pie not only was a beloved “coffee spot”, it also baked pies which it delivered to commercial operations citywide. Paul Baker scanned some wonderful pictures family album pictures from the ’50s and ’60s which include shots of his aunt Hilda Langston, a tall brunette. These images are amazing documents that are akin to Mr. Rogers Neighborhood’s segments on production assembly lines. Interior images such as these rarely surface and these early color images give us a window into the creation of the pies.
Nadine Inez and her twin were abandoned at the downtown Meier & Frank Store (601 SW 5th Ave.) during the Great Depression. This image of Nadine Inez is from a postcard owned by Webfooter Stephen Kenney; he has asked Norm Gholston and Tanya March to share this image broadly in hopes that we can find Nadine Inez and interview her. This postcard is from 1932, it is our understanding that the staff at Meier & Frank raised at least one of the the foundlings in the store for two years prior to the child’s adoption.
For a decade now The Portland Horse Project has connected the history of horse transportation by attaching plastic horses to existing horse rings. This art activity engages children and adults with very tangible remnants of our city’s equine past. The horses left on the rings add a bit of whimsy to our city street. This guerrilla art effort, started in 2005 by Scott Wayne, links us to our past. 