The Historic Photographs

In the years from 1905 to 1920, Irvington was regarded as one of the most desirable of Portland suburbs.  Its sister neighborhood, Holladay Park, to the south had been the premier East Side neighborhood throughout the late 19^th century and already had an amazing stock of elegant homes.  As a result, there is a fairly good photo record of the great homes of Irvington, and to a lesser extent Holladay Park.

Sadly, Holladay Park was almost totally destroyed by the Lloyd family interests from California during the late 1920’s up through the 1950’s in anticipation of the construction of the Lloyd Center, despite the questionable need for a shopping center 2 miles from downtown.  Irvington too suffered the effects of ill-advised development.  Commercial development on busy Broadway resulted in many homes being demolished during the 1920’s.  Then, during the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, Irvington lost many fine homes to apartment construction along Schuyler and Hancock streets.

The historic photos in the exhibit show both homes that are still standing and those that were demolished in the “development” years.  They come from three sources:

• Residential Portland 1911 – This book was published by the “Newspaper Syndicate” in, of course, 1911.  The book contains 93 black and white photographs of homes throughout the Portland area, including many from Irvington and Holladay Park.  It is believed that home owners paid to have their homes depicted in it.  Thus, it tends to show homes built in the years immediately prior to its publication.  Only three copies of Residential Portland 1911 are known to have survived.  One each in the Multnomah County Library and the Oregon Historical Society, and one in the possession of an Irvington resident who made his copy available for scanning and digitizing the images for this exhibit.
• Adolph Meyer Collection – Adolph Meyer was a landscape and stone wall contractor active in the 1920’s.  He evidently was also an accomplished photographer, as he photographed many of his projects.  One of his photographs is found in the exhibit today.  The entire collection of Meyer’s photographs is in the hands of an architectural historian in Southeast Portland, who has made them available for scanning and digitizing for historic display purposes.
• Eugene Thayer Collection – Eugene Thayer was a commercial photographer working in Portland from 1929 to 1941.  His specialty was residential photography, and he produced beautiful hand-colored photographs, greeting cards, and related art-work for his generally well-heeled clientele.  A large number of his photographs, both negatives and prints, has survived and is in the hands of a collector in Irvington who provided the image of the Costello House for this exhibit.