Fujii Farms Ramping Up For The Season

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This is a thing I also see on my commute.

At one time, of course, there were farms all along the long streets east of Portland and going through the area we once commonly (thought inaccurately) called East County, interrupted only by Gresham and Troutdale and Fairview, which were just small burgs at that time. 

Eastern Multnomah County ... small-town Oregon. Now, of course, it's a totally different planet. 

There are at least a couple of working farms still surviving. One I've visited to take a bunch of Wy'east pictures, as anyone who's followed this knows, Rossi Farms, on NE 122nd and Shaver, between Fremont and Sandy, adjacent to Parkrose High. This is a corner of a similar working farm: Fujii Farms, a farm mostly specializing in berries.

This is the northwest corner of SE Stark and S Troutdale Road, and this is where Fujii Farms has a seasonal fruit and produce stand operating from approximately June through the summer. They have more than one.

The fields behind that stand are predominantly berries but there are also grapes. There have been school buses and porta-commodes during the summer; echoes of my going out and picking strawberries out around Silverton when I was a kid are ringing most strongly.

For those of you who like this sort of thing, they have the fresh produce and berries coming. 

Dreamland East of 257th On Stark

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In the intervening time since the last times I regularly posted, I've changed places of employ. I used to work near the Portland International Airport; now I work in an area called Springdale, which is about three miles east of the south end of Troutdale via Stark Street and Historic Columbia River Highway.

It's a longer commute, but I love it; I use all of Stark Street east of SE 122nd, out to its veriest end. This pleases me as I know I follow not only a rather historic road for this area but also the Willamette Base Line. I've become much more familiar with areas of Gresham I formerly rarely visited. 

There's some nice stuff there. I've missed out.

The road climbs from about 205th and Stark to 223rd, a rise I call Twelvemile Hill (after the historic name of Twelvemile Corner which is 223rd and Stark). It then levels a bit, descends gently from Hogan to 257th, then just east of 257th, drops more precipitously. This allows for some lovely views, if the morning clouds and mist are just right. Like this, here:

Stark Street is a very broad-shouldered, muscular boulevard all the way out to 257th. After that, it drops down to a 2-lane local road and descends this hill along the north side of Mt Hood Community College. Just beyond his, the first traffic signal is Troutdale Road, and beyond that, in the distance, is the signal at SE Evans Avenue in Troutdale, which is the veriest and lastest signal on all of Stark. 

Today, hanging over the gulch that the Sandy River flows down, was that bank of cloud. Most dreamy. 

Troutdale: The Gateway To The Gateway To The Gorge

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At the western entrance to downtown Troutdale, just east of where the freeway overpass deposits you (or if you come from the south, via SW 257th Dr*) you'll pass under a really pretty nicely-done archway gate.

TROUTDALE GATEWAY TO THE GORGE, it exults, adorned on either side with the fish that give the town its name. It's actually rather understated for a monumental gate.

And still, it's not overstating it. One will notice, as you travel eastward on Historic Columbia River Hwy, that there is a rather substantial knoll overlooking the main drag.

And though the road snakes down into the dell and crosses the Sandy River on a historic old girder bridge (which was being worked on and was closed when we were there) that road bends to respect the sheer rock face on the right bank of the Sandy. It is a headland against which the relentless rectilinear grid of the eastern Metro area breaks and, in a very real way, the first high point of the south rim of the Columbia Gorge.

The manmade gate is back several blocks. The natural gate, much more spectacular, you can see from quite a way off. Natural grandeur, only about 15 miles outside of downtown Portland ... and the Cascade foothills, on the doorstep of downtown Troutdale.

* One may find the name of a main road in Troutdale being SW 257th Drive a bit perplexing. Troutdale doesn't spread out that much. However, that part of town is in the Southwest address quadrant and was originally NE 257th Dr before the city developed around it. They address it like a Troutdale street, but kept the historic name.

Troutdale: Main Street, Small Town Oregon

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Troutdale's downtown area, that several blocks of Historic Columbia River Highway paralelling the I-84 freeway, is a very prim and tidy place.

The impression one gets is that it was maybe the set on a back lot for an American small town downtown. This is not a bad thing: it's neat and nifty and comfortable, not too large and perhaps a bit small for a town of about 17,000 people ... but it's on the edge of the greatest commercial shopping area in Oregon, so there're other places very close by to do business.

And, strangely enough, there is a Western town vibe. Maybe it's the squarish storefronts, I don't know. History teachers, when I was a kid, were fond of pointing out that the American frontier ... the so-called "Wild West", stereotyped in story and Spaghetti western ... was, indeed, east of the Willamette Valley.

But the feeling is here. A bit glossy, and without the chunky type font, but it's here.

The sound of the train going through downtown helps that a bit.

Even the City Hall is a modest place, fitting in, not drawing too much attention to itself. Prim, proper, tidy, and above all, just doin' its job.

Troutdale: Mayor's Square Park

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I am, generally speaking, a fan of any public thing that teaches what came before. A great example of this was found on our visit to downtown Troutdale.

At the southwest corner of SE Dora Ave and East Historic Columbia River Highway is a small corner park and it's decorated with Troutdale history. Did any of you know that, just about a year after women won the franchise in Oregon, a woman was elected mayor of Troutdale? It's true. The year was 1914, and this was the woman:

This is Clara Latourell Larsson. If the name sounds at least one-third familiar, it should; there's a cataract a few miles up the Gorge named for her pioneer family (Latourell Falls). She came from a tradition of civic involvment: her relative, Lizzie Latourell, served on early school boards a few years before that. It's said that Clara served in one capacity or another in Troutdale civic life until shortly before her death in 1939.

Troutdale, the legends say, was originally named Sandy, but was renamed to Troutdale by the city's father, Aaron Fox, after trout ponds he had. Coincidentally, Sandy still stands as an Oregon city name, but that town is about ten miles southeast of here.


Knowing this, it's not hard to figure what the other focal point of the park honors.

Us locals sometimes call it Fishburg, but it's a nicknaming with no small amount of affection.

Mayor's Square finished the tableau with a vision of Troutdale's history, looking down upon you. The mural, credited to Duane Harty and Tammy Callens, proclaims it being released to the public domain, so the image is yours and mine. Being history, it seems only fitting.

For the Clara Larsson sculpture, we can credit Marlena Neilson.

Troutdale: The View from Buxton Hill

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Now, earlier, a couple of missives back, I mentioned entering Troutdale from the south. This involves coming in on South Troutdale Road, which jogs to become the non-directional Buxton Road at its signal at SW Cherry Park Road, at approximately the 1200 block.

It then goes down a really nifty hill. You get a good view: the Columbia River bottomland and a vista of Washington, across the river, spreads out before you.

The Girl gasped at this ... she loves expansive views, and started chirping "Picture! Picture!". And when you're right, you're right. So.

That grove of trees in the middle distance are just beyond the airport and obscure the Columbia River itself. The green hills beyond are all Washington, though, a land foreignish, but not foreign (we are all Cascadian). The green topped buildings just beyond those at the foot of the hill are the factory outlet stores, quite a draw.

At a time in the past the area beyond the trees would have also had a bustling and power-thirsty aluminum plant, and if you had anything aluminum, from pots to foil, during the 1950s through 1980s, there was a good chance that the aluminum it had came from there; one of the many benefits of cheap hydro power that we Oregonians still, to a degree, take for granted.

Troutdale: A Beetle Trailer, Made Of Two Beetles

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Yesterday, when me and The Brown Eyed Girl were in Troutdale, we had a thought to go down to the old historic Stark Street Bridge. We didn't get there, it was closed for some sort of reconstruction work, but when we were turning around, we did see this:

... it's just what you think it is: a VW trailer made of VWs. Two of them. You weld the backs of two Type I chassis toether and there you have it, and just to make it truly local, you paint an image of Wy'East on it.

This is not only Oregon AF, it's Troutdale as hell.

That it was on a piece of property in the Sandy River dell just east of downtown and out of sight of the mountain is a mere technicality.

The Street Sign At The "Center" Of Troutdale

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Yesterday, the Brown Eyed Girl and myself did a little East County sightseeing. With nowhere to really go during these COVID-19 inflected times, its about all one can do really, but then, when you live in greater Portland, it's a fine thing to do indeed.

Yesterday, on our "Sunday drive", we went all the way out Division through Gresham to Troutdale Road, then into Troutdale itself. As many years as I've been a Portlander, the majority of my life by now, I'm a little abashed to say that while I know where just about everywhere is and can get there without a map, I am rather parochial as regards my beloved E 122nd Avenue and David-Douglas-landia. The wife thinks in broader terms than I, and is not only interested in as many things as I am, but more given to spontaneity. So we hung out in downtown Troutdale for a short while, and I ligged about taking snapshots.

I've got pictures to share over the next several missives, but I wanted to satiate my Address Nerd with this. The center of the Troutdale address grid is this intersection, right here

Troutdale, as with all but one of the other cities that hem Portland in on the east side, has an address grid of its own, and its origin point is where these two roads come together.

The east-west street is part of a storied historical road, and its somewhat gangly name tries to carry the whole of that reputation on its back. The whole of the official name of the street is Historical Columbia River Highway, and since it's divided in twain by the street that, in central Troutdale, divides the grid east from west, it comes in two complementary flavors: West Historical Columbia River Highway and East Historical Columbia River Highway. The necessity to include so much type on a street blade, even a fairly macho wooden one, necessitated a creative solution, as can be seen in the photo.

Buxton Road is the other baseline, running south from the city center and dividing Troutdale into east and west halves, and does not present a directional, similar to State Street in Salem. After this road leaves the center of town it does a small s-shaped jog and becomes South Troutdale Road, maintaining its baseline duties to the edge of town.

Troutdale's address grid is quite lopsided: the historic center of town is well into the north part of it and the town grew mostly southeast and southwest from there. Buxton Road does not extend north of Historic Columbia River Hwy; north of the main drag there's the railroad, then I-84, then the Troutdale Airport then, the Columbia River, all in less than a mile. The city is divided into binomial compass quadrants, however and the grid is considered to continue into that area; the streets, all of which lie north of the freeway, are prefixed NW west of the airport, and there are one or two streets just east of the airport which wear the NE directional in a NE quadrant that is an almost absurdly small sliver of land.

I have more pictures of a very picturesque little Oregon town on the edge of the Metro, positioned at the literal entry to the Columbia Gorge, Oregon and Washington's own Grand Canyon, which has a knowing sense of its own history and is charming as anything, and the will form the subject of further posts.