Fun Facts

Slabtown Fun Fact #15 Ramp to Nowhere off of Fremont Bridge. Where should it go?

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Slabtown Fun Fact #15 Ramp to Nowhere off of Fremont Bridge. Where should it go?
The freeway “chad”/ghost ramp is just north of St. Patrick’s Church.
This was once going to connect the Fremont Bridge to I505. (Image TLM March 2015)

 

PDC Slide City of Portland Archives I-505 Vision Couch School was still sharing space with MLC at the time this image was created.

Neighbors were alarmed when they noticed surveyors planning to clear away homes along the proposed route for I-505. The initial environment impact statement was four pages.  In November 13, 1970, the Oregonian reported in “Road Route Plan Aired” that J.H. Versed construction engineer for the State Highway Department’s metropolitan division estimated that the construction would start in 1973 after homes along Thurman and Vaughn Street could be acquired and demolished.  He estimated that the interstate would be completed in 1976.  A few months later in September 1971 neighborhood groups filed a class action suit seeking to prevent further acquisition of right-of-way for I-505 and I-405 that were displacing residents.

 

Road Map assumed I-505 a 3.17 spur was going to be built. The section is from a Portland City map above was published in 1979 by Gousha. 

Memories of Portland Development Commission’s(1) proposed Vaughn Street Urban Renewal plan were still in the recent past I-405 and I-505 would eliminate the blight that Housing Authority of Portland(2)  and others had failed to eliminate.  Thurman Street homes were being purchased to facilitate clearing a path for the 1.44-mile Portland spur.  The city planning staff estimated that 400 people and some 200 of units of housing would be impacted by the I-505 alone. Our Historic Slabtown Tour would not be possible today had this freeway been built because what little that would be left to view would be so close to a freeway that the car noise would cancel out my tour guide vocal cords. The I-505 was conceived of as a junction was conceived to run between St. Helens Road (Highway 30) to Interstate 405.  Puzzlingly one of the adverse impacts cited in the blocking of the construction of this interstate was that it would trigger an increase in land values.

If you want to learn more about the fight to stop the I-505 I recommend reading Chet Orloff’s 1991 interview with narrator Morton Paglin (link).

(1) PDC now known as Prosper Portland

(2) HAP now know as Home Forward

Fun Fact #14 Where did Slabtown Kids Learn to Swim?

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Image of the pool in the basement of MLC School. The water has been drained out but the lane dividers are still attached hanging like party decorations. Part of a mural of seas creature is on the right. This is taken from the deep end of the dry pool where there was once a diving board.

Fun Fact #14 Where did Slabtown Kids Learn to Swim?

New Couch School Pool PPS Files at MLC

Answer at School. In 1914 Portland Public Schools District was making every effort to replace Portland’s wooden school structures with new fire proof school buildings.  The Old Couch School (built in 1882) was at 17th and Kerny and had a dire reputation post Small Pox (Think COVID-19 this was even prior to the Spanish Influenza).  The New Couch School in 1914, at NW 20th and Glisan was one of the early efforts to replace a wooden structure. The excavated this property went deep enough to provide for a basement swimming pool at the time they called it a swim tank.

Empty Pool 2012 TLM
There was not really a shallow end tables we dropped into the water so that non-swimmers could learn to swim (2012 TLM)

Fun Fact #13 Thanksgiving Trivia!

Slabtown Tours Fun Facts

According to the Oregonian article dated November 25, 1917, the state of Oregon wasn’t always in agreement with the rest of country as to when Thanksgiving should be celebrated. The newspaper reported that in 1894, then Governor Sylvester Pennoyer wrote a handwritten proclamation on an ordinary sheet of note paper from his Salem office. It read: “I hereby appoint the last Thursday of this month a Thanksgiving holiday.” This caused confusion because 1894 had five Thursdays in November, and the rest of the nation was observing the holiday on the fourth as it is today.  The article claimed some Oregonian’s celebrated one day and some of them observed the other.  Even back then, they must have been thinking about how many shopping days we could get in before Christmas.

 

Governor Sylvester Pennoyer agrees Walking  Tours Gift Certificates make great stocking stuffers. Order Online.

 

Fun Facts #12 Would Jesus have shopped here?

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Image og Man in tie in front of his shop on 23rd, open sign is on door
He may not had a line of regular customers, but many shoppers were very “faithful”
to this 23rd Avenue business.
Image Credit Mike Ryerson

Would Jesus have shopped here?

When Jon Heil opened his Better Beef & Bible store in the summer of 1976, rents for prime retail spaces on the not-yet-Trendy-Third Avenue were still very inexpensive. The sharp young marketing graduate took a chance and opened a small shop in the former Arrow Ambulance office at the corner of NW 23rd & Hoyt Street to specialized in what he loved best. Good quality beef, and the good book. Heil, who was a Christian, had been a sales-man for Attilla Meat Company, so he knew his merchandise well.  His unique business served the neighborhood until the early 1980s . . . mostly with beef.

Slabtown Fun Facts #11: Who was Myrtle Casper

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Slabtown Fun Facts #11: Who was Myrtle Casper
Image courtesy Mike Ryerson
Photographer Fred DeWolfe

The late Myrtle Casper was a longtime resident of the Slabtown neighborhood in Northwest Portland. Her husband, Ben Casper, owned the Saw Shop, which is now the site of the Northwest Portland Library parking lot. Myrtle enjoyed spending her time shooting pool with the men at the Northwest Tavern & Pool (now McMenamins) on NW 23rd Avenue. After all, what else was there for a lady to do when her husband spent his days sharpening saws?

Myrtle Clara Casper was born in Kansas in 1890. She was married three times and spent much of her early years working as a housekeeper. She passed away in 1974 at the age of 83 in an apartment above her favorite pool hall. Ben died four years later at the age of 93.

A large copy of this photograph of Myrtle is displayed on the wall of McMenamins Tavern & Pool. If the tour group is small your tour guide will take you into the bar that was Myrtle’s home away from home.

 

Fun Fact #10 Who was that big guy in the center?

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Fun Fact #10 Who was that big guy in the center?
Who was that big guy in the center?
He towered above his Lincoln High teammates, and
he let them to a State Basketball Championship.

Slabtown had a hometown hero, because of his own struggles with class and the status quo in Portland. His “quest” and notoriety (transformation from freaky tall to starlight), which was followed by residents even after they were relocated, was to succeed at a sport—basketball—with which he had had no previous experience. Harvey Wade “Swede” Halbrook, who had an important career in the National Basketball Association in the 1950s. I met pro-baseball player Milo Meskel’s sister for the first time at the third Guild’s Lake Courts reunion in 2009.

Beverly Meskel: We all had fun down there. Everybody was friends—didn’t matter where you came from, you were all broke. We didn’t have anywhere to go…. We came from Minnesota where my dad made a dollar a day. If we didn’t live on a farm, we all would have starved to death…. Swede Halbrook, well, if you lived in Guild’s Lake [Courts], everyone knew Swede Halbrook.  Well, in the fifth grade I stood about this high [motioning short] and Swede stood about this high [motioning tall]. And my brother-in-law’s dad used to say you two should get married so your kids would be the right size. He was quite a guy. I think there were…four guys [brothers]—Joe, Dan, and Jim and him, I think.

Joe: They were all tall.

Beverly Meskel: They were all tall, but Swede also had a gland problem. We almost lost him in sixth grade; he was up at Oregon Health Science for a long time.

Joe: Halbrook was in my class at Chapman.

Beverly Meskel: Was he? So, like I said, he was not that well of a person. Plus he tried so much to have friends that he did not know who his friends were and who were the users. He got himself in quite a bit of trouble… He was a neat kid, really.

Swede Holbrook at Guilds Lake Courts Courtesy Guilds Lake History Project

Swede, pictured sitting down with his long legs and enormous shoes, became a man of mythical proportions, who, at 7’3”, was the tallest player ever to play for Oregon State College. He was even larger than life when he lived at Guild’s Lake Courts, but he never played basketball there because there was only one hoop in the entire development, and that was inside a mixed-use room in the Guild’s Lake School.

Fun Fact #7 Lost Flanders Street Home Found Thanks to Local History Detective Mike Ryerson

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Fun Fact #7 Lost Flanders Street Home Found Thanks to Local History Detective Mike Ryerson

Sladen House Courtesy Sladen Family & Mike’s History Tours (our old branding)

Portland’s layers of street re-naming and re-numbering can some times cause a house to get lost.  The Flanders Street home was found thanks to Local History Detective Slabtown team member Mike Ryerson.

When Civil War army veteran Captain Joseph A. Sladen retired from the military in the early 1890s, he built a beautiful home for his large family on Flanders Street.  This structure is one of the last remaining 1890s mansions in the boundaries of the Alphabet Historic District.  

Captain Sladen courtesy Mike Ryerson

After Sladen died in 1911,  his family eventually moved to various locations, many of his descendants live in the east coast region of the country. When his descendants attempted to find the historic old house based on the address obtained on multiple sources including: historic letters, Polk directories and federal census enumerations, they determined that their assessorial home had been demolished. After being lost for 75 years, we’ve informed them we found it right where he’d left it.


     

 

 

 

We are always digging deep into the neighborhood history to enrich our walking tours:

In 2013 after this fun fact came out became fascinated with the remodeling being done on the Captain Joseph A. Sladen Home at NW 22nd Flanders.  Mike Ryerson contacted the owners to learn more about their restoration project and what the current owner did or did not know about the history of the house. Co-owner Robert Wagner, a partner in the law firm of Miller & Wagner who occupies the building, told us the house was originally the home of Captain Sladen who had served in the Civil War. He went on to tell us that a book had been written called “Making Peace with Cochise” which was compiled from entries in Sladen’s journal during his military days. (More on the book later.) We didn’t recall ever having seen any old photos of the house, so we set out to find one. After searching historic Oregonian newspapers for facts on Captain Sladen, we posted a message on Ancestry.com asking Sladen family members if they had any photographs of the building. Within a few days, we received several replies informing us that the house had been torn down years ago. Over the course of many years, Sladen’s decentness had researched “722 Flanders Street” to see if they could find the old family house, only to conclude that the address no longer existed. We were happy to inform them that Portland addresses were changed in the 1930s and their old family home was safe and sound at 2210 NW Flanders Street. They now have current photos, and they have shared with us and the current owners many splendid images of the old Sladen house and the Sladen family.

Fun Facts #6: It’s not Christmas without Elvis

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Fun Facts #6: It’s not Christmas without Elvis

Updated 6-19-2025 Added Links, Images, Sources

Presley Spun – Deejay Fired: Elvis White Christmas Banned by KEX Radio

Image of Elvis’s performance to a crowd of 14,000 at the Multnomah Civic Stadium on September 2, 1957, The Oregonian.  Link to more about the performance.

Portland’s KEX Radio banned Elvis Presley’s recording of “White Christmas” from being played on the air. Al Priddy, a popular deejay, ignored his boss and it cost him his job. When radio station KEX received a copy of “Elvis’ Christmas Album” in 1957, the management made the decision not to air the “White Christmas” cut. One narritive is that Disc jockey, Al Priddy, figured station manager Mel Bailey wouldn’t be listening late on a Sunday night, so he gave it a spin.

Low quality image of middle ae white man with glasses and a biw ties
Mel Baily Courtesy The Oregon Daily Journal. Dec 15, 1949.

Bailey tuned-in and he promptly called the station and told Priddy to finish his show and then look for a new job. The call was recorded and Priddy played the recording on the air.

 

Image of Al Preddy - head shot
This man ignored the ban Elvis White Christmas Ban KEX RadioImage Courtesy: The Oregon Daily Journal
Dec 03, 1957 ·P. 19

Post incident, Baily stated to the press that the song was extremely vulgar and desecrates the meaning of Christmas. Mike Ryerson recalled that the song was banned by the station executive because the boss thought is not in the good taste ascribe to Christmas music. Portlanders decried the firing as censorship. Several weeks later, Al Priddy was back on the air at KEX spinning records live all was forgotten.  In 1987, at age 78, he was invited to be a guest disc jockey at KEX so he could play Elvis’ “White Christmas” one more time.

Looking for other Fun Facts?

Ryerson selected the topic an co-wrote of this Fun Fact if you want to read more posts about Ryerson:

Fun Fact #20 is about one of the businesses Mike owned on NW23rd

Fun Fact #39 is about his effort to thwart a serial raciest that led to Mike being a target of PPB

 

 

Selection of Sources:

Boule, Margie, “A Priddy Good Story, While it Lasted”. The Oregonian. Dec. 16, 1987 ·Page 25

The Oregonian, Nov. 20, 1957 ·P34

The Oregonian, Nov. 21, 1957 ·P34

The Oregon Daily Journal,  Dec. 03, 1957 ·P19

The Oregonian, Nov. 22, 1957 ·P79

The Oregonian, Dec. 03, 1957 ·P17

 

Fun Fact #5 Who Burned Down Chapman School?

Slabtown Tours Fun Facts
Text: Old Chapman School. NW 25th and Wilson - 1891-1923- Photo taken about 1910 - Destroyed by arson fire in 1924.

Answer: Sheepherder John Hardy burned down Chapman School in 1924.

John Hardy claimed he didn’t have any reason for destroying the old Chapman School with a single match. “I just did it,” he admitted. “My mind don’t work right and when 

 I see a building, I just can’t help setting it afire.”  The paper from 1924 lacks today’s political correctness their by-line “School is burned firebug confesses, John Hardy, Sheepherder, Fires Chapman Building–OTHERS ATTEMPTS LISTED: Prisoner, Declared ‘Queer,’ Tells of Setting Match to Structures About City.”  The paper reports a week later that he was committed to a mental institution.

Morning Oregonian August 7, 1924. Crazy Sheepherder Burns Chapman School
 

Fun Facts #s 1-4: Joe DiMaggio, Nob Hill, Ona Munson, Ray Charles…

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Fun Facts #s 1-4: Joe DiMaggio, Nob Hill, Ona Munson, Ray Charles…

HISTORY FUN FACTS #1

Rocky Benevento use to have Joe over for spaghetti dinner and poker games.

On June 18, 1935, Joe DiMaggio hit two home runs that landed on NW 25th Avenue In Portland.

New York Yankee great Joe DiMaggio played for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League from 1932-1935. He hit tow home runs in a night game against Portland Beavers in the old Vaughn Street Ball Park at NW 24th Avenue that landed on 25th Avenue. The Seals won the game by a score of 7 to 5.

 

 

HISTORY FUN FACTS #2

The first NW Portland business to use the Nob Hill name was located at the current site of an internationally known restaurant.

A gentleman from San Francisco named George Snyder opened a Nob Hill grocery store at 19th& West Burnside in 1883. The location is now the site of McDonald’s Restaurant.

HISTORY FUN FACTS #3 Which local girl landed a role in Gone With the Wind?

Ona Munson (1903-1955) is best known for her role as a prostitute named Belle Watling in the classic 1939 movie Gone with the Wind. A few years earlier she had been sitting behind a desk at NW 23rd & Irving Street.

Ona Munson, who had changed her name from Owena Wolcott, attended Miss Catlin’s School on NW 23rd. [The school building ran out of a mansion owned by the Hoffman family from 1911-1917, the location of that dwelling is currently Papa Haydn restaurant site .]  Munson was a student for several years at what later became Catlin Gabel School, thanks to the patronage of the wealthy and eccentric Maud Ainsworth.   She enrolled at Lincoln High School as a freshman but did not matriculate; she left Portland in 1917 at the age of fourteen for New York to become a dancer.

HISTORY FUN FACTS #4

City of Portland Archives and Records a2005-001-164 West Burnside St. and 21st Ave looking west 1953 (cropped)

When it was announced over the public address system that Ray Charles wouldn’t be performing during his scheduled evening concert at the popular 21st Avenue; West Burnside dance hall, the crowd began to riot. Before the evening had ended, 101 police officers with clubs, and 25 firefighters with hoses had arrived in an attempt to calm nearly 1,000 angry rock ‘n’ roll fans.

For nearly 40 years, a dance hall operated at the current site of Walgreens on West Burnside. In the 1930s and 1940s it drew large crowds attending dances with the big band sounds. At first it was called DeHoney’s Ballroom when it opened in 1926 at one point that switch to the Uptown Ballroom, only to be renamed the Palais Royale Ballroom and the patrons of the 1950s and 1960s were attracted by the new sounds of rock ‘n’ roll. A young Ray Charles and his orchestra were on tour and they were scheduled to play on Saturday, September 3, 1960. Unfortunately for the Portland fans, his private plane was stranded in Seattle due to fog. When it as announced onstage that he wouldn’t be performing, the crowd rushed to the cashier’s cage and demanded their money back. A massive riot erupted and 17 people were arrested.  The video of the riot has often been miss identified as taking place in California.  The video was posted by the Ray Charles video museum. Watching the video it is not surprising that another six were injured, including three police officers, as the crowd spilled onto the NW Portland streets causing damages to storefronts and vehicles for several city blocks.