Collage by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

By Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Portland is an ever-changing city, and has a long history of development making this a better place to live. But sometimes, change comes too fast, and one-of-a-kind buildings and priceless treasures are lost in the name of progress.

Like that time that Portland’s most-beautiful Victorian mansion was razed for what eventually would become a surface parking lot. Or the time when our grandest hotel was bulldozed to make way for a parking garage. Then there’s that time that a department store was demolished without preserving the priceless murals that were painted on its walls.

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Video by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Here are 14 cases of almost criminal short-sightedness that robbed future generations of something great for the sake of something shabby.

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The Richard B. Knapp mansion

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The Oregonian file photo

The 1882 Richard B. Knapp house once stood on the full block between Northwest 17th and 18th avenues, between Davis and Everett streets. The Victorian-era construction featured 18 rooms, a ballroom, handcrafted wood floors, five fireplaces and intricate wood staircases. Built at a cost of $80,000, it was considered Portland’s most-opulent house. Original owner Richard Knapp made a fortune selling farm equipment before coming to Portland, where he was involved in real estate, mining and railroad businesses.

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Photos by Allan J. de Lay, The Oregonian

The ornate turret of the Knapp house looked out on Northwest Everett Street, and offered views of busy river docks and a thriving city. The third floor of the house featured a ballroom with a high ceiling. When he shot these photos just before the home was demolished, acclaimed Oregonian photographer Allan J. de Lay wrote: "Visitors can close their eyes and imagine the soft strains of violins, guitars and banjos mingling with the happy conversation and the laughter as square dancing went on."

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Photos by Allan J. de Lay, The Oregonian

Indicative of the home’s grandeur was the massive wood-and-tiled fireplace in the lower hall. Gold candlesticks flanked a painting of "The Good Shepherd," and the light fixtures were custom-made for the house by Tiffany & Co. of New York. The oak and maple used for the home’s grand staircase were hand-carved.

Knapp lost the house along with his riches during the 1890s economic depression, and the house had various owners until 1948, when St. Mary’s Cathedral (located just across the street) purchased the property. In 1951, the cathedral tore down the house to make way for a children’s playground, and the decision to raze the house made the front page of The Oregonian.

Architect John Yeon mourned its passing, saying it was without peer anywhere in western America: "There is no other house of comparable age or interest surviving on its original site in Portland. We are losing it not because of fire or quake or enemy bombs, but only because of community indifference."

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Photos by Allan J. de Lay, The Oregonian

In a lengthy letter to the editor, Gladys Turley of Salem remembered the role the house played in her childhood: “For many who lived in their youth near the Knapp mansion, its razing is a personal and hurting thing. For me the Knapp house will always provide a satisfying memory of childhood and adolescence. It will remain for me a symbol of Portland when it was a friendly hometown and not 1951’s cold, madly-rushing metropolis with all of the dignified landmarks gone.”

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Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The playground later went away and the block became a surface parking lot for the cathedral. A stone retaining wall is the only remnant of the block’s former glory. It’s easy to imagine the role that this building might have played as a neighborhood museum, a community center, or even a rectory for the cathedral. Instead, there’s a block of asphalt.

On the corner of Northwest 18th Avenue and Davis Street, there's a small plaque showing a photo of the Knapp house soon after it was built, along with a few details of the house's history (including incorrect information about when it was demolished).

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The Oriental Theater

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Library of Congress

Longtime Portlanders still mourn this long-lost treasure – and rightly so. The Oriental Theater was one of the city’s most-elaborate movie houses, and a star of the eastside entertainment scene. Built in 1927 on Southeast Grand Avenue and Morrison Street, it was an ornate movie house with a large Wurlitzer pipe organ and an Asian-themed décor that included tapestries, Chinese lanterns, and large chandeliers. While the 2,000-seat theater was used for movies for most of its lifespan, during the 1960s, it was the temporary home of the Portland Symphony and other arts organization while Civic Auditorium (now known as the Keller) was undergoing extensive renovation.

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Oregonian file photo

Despite being in splendid shape, the Oriental Theatre’s fate was sealed by Portland’s car culture. In 1970, all of the theater’s fixtures and equipment were auctioned off. Many of the statues were purchased by a movie theater in Sherwood, which changed its name to the Oriental in honor of the old Portland theater. Most of the pipes from the theater's organ were installed in the Organ Grinder pizza parlor on Southeast 82nd Avenue (it’s now in the history books, too). Soon after the auction, the building was demolished to provide parking for the next door Weatherly Building. But not without public outcry.

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Oregonian file photo

Before the theater was demolished, Northeast Portland resident D.W. Hardman captured the public’s alarm over the pending loss of the Oriental in a letter to The Oregonian: “An irreplaceable structure will be sacrificed to the pursuit of a dollar without first pursuing the means of its preservation. … If indeed ‘what goes up must come down,’ then the City of Roses will lose one more rose and will move one more step toward being auto-dominated and people-poor.”

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The Saks Fifth Avenue murals by Rick Bartow

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Photos by Rebekah Johnson

One of Oregon’s most-significant contemporary artists was painter Rick Bartow, who explored themes of his Native American heritage in works that brought international acclaim. One of Bartow’s most widely seen works was a pair of murals he created in the escalator atrium of downtown Portland’s Saks Fifth Avenue store, which opened in 1990 as part of the Pioneer Place shopping mall.

The murals were Bartow’s first large-scale paintings, and featured the artist’s trademark hawks. Oregonian art critic Randy Gragg was impressed with their power: “For a first outing in permanent art, Bartow's painting technique has proven adaptable and his content has remained uncompromised. Though he has the advantage of the one large, neutral space in the entire store, there is a power to his work that stands stiff in a retail wind that bends the other works into decorative submission.”

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Rebekah Johnson

Bartow’s murals remained one of Saks’ most-beautiful features, though they were seen by fewer people when the store’s business dropped off after the 2008 economic crisis. In 2012, the murals were destroyed when Saks was demolished to make way for the new Apple Store. But only after exhaustive efforts were made to have them removed and displayed elsewhere. Portland art dealer Charles Froelick, who represented Bartow, tried to negotiate funding to have them preserved, which would have been costly since they were painted on curved walls and couldn’t simply be cut away. But adequate funding never materialized.

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Marc Kawanishi, The Oregonian

“The loss of these murals is particularly acute since Rick’s passing in April of last year,” said Wilder Schmaltz, assistant director of Froelick Gallery. “They were major, unique works in his oeuvre, and very emblematic of his vision of the world.”

Bartow passed away in 2016 at the age of 69. His murals, which by rights should have found a permanent home at the Portland Art Museum, live on only in photographs.

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The Portland Hotel

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The Oregonian file photo

Over the years, a number of historic Portland buildings have been torn down to make way for parking garages, but perhaps the greatest loss was The Portland Hotel. It opened in 1890 after years of delays, and was considered one of the most-beautiful hotels in the country. The Oregonian called the new hotel "The pride of Portland."

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The Oregonian file photo

The Portland Hotel had more than 300 rooms in its eight floors, and its elegant Palm Room restaurant served Northwest delicacies like roasted oysters and deviled crab. The hotel quickly became the heart of Portland’s social scene, and set the standard for luxury hotels that would arrive in the 20th Century. It played an important historical role, too, playing host to 11 U.S. Presidents during its six-decade run.

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The Oregonian file photo

But the building fell into disrepair in the 1940s. In 1951, Meier & Frank department store, which was located across the intersection of Southwest Sixth Avenue and Morrison Street bought the hotel, and announced plans to tear it down for a two-story parking garage.

In an editorial after the hotel's pending closure was announced, The Oregonian recalled the hotel's golden era, "when the guests dressed for dinner, when Champagne was almost routine, and when the hotel's orchestra used to give concerts in the Sixth Avenue courtyard.

"The old hotel is going down gloriously, to make way for progress which does not contemplate buildings of its style. Portlanders will miss it for a long time."

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The Oregonian file photo

News of the Portland Hotel's pending closure sent shockwaves through the city, which was still reeling from the demolition of the Richard B. Knapp home earlier in 1951. The hotel saw a surge in business that summer, particularly in its stately restaurant, where customers turned out in droves for one last meal there.

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The Oregonian file photo

The Meier & Frank parking garage (seen here under construction in 1952) was demolished in the early 1980s to create Pioneer Courthouse Square, which features the hotel’s iron gate on its east side. Pioneer Courthouse Square is great, to be sure, and its creation makes up for the loss of the Portland Hotel. Well, almost.

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The Colossus on the waterfront

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Oregonian file photo

Portland has long paid tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, thanks to the 1922 statue of the 26th President that stands in the South Park Blocks. But there was another short-lived tribute to the original Rough Rider that few people remember. It was an 18-foot-high Colossus sculpture that was created in the late 1930s by Oliver Barrett, who was the head sculptor at the University of Oregon. It was paid for by veterans of the Spanish American War, and was positioned on the Willamette waterfront in the Battleship Oregon Park at the foot of Southwest Jefferson Street.

The statue wasn’t a likeness of Roosevelt, but was a more generic figure that was meant to embody his spirit and determination, and was sculpted in the modern style. It did, however, feature Roosevelt’s profile on its base, along with the inscription “Our nation holds in its hands the fate of the coming years.”

But the timing of the statue and its design sealed its fate. It was completed in February 1939, and many citizens complained that the sculpture resembled Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, while other said it looked like Frankenstein’s monster (if you look closely, it actually bears closest resemblance to the art deco figure of Academy Award trophies). Less than three years later, just before America entered the war, the statue was removed by the city and was to be transferred to Stanton Yards in North Portland for what was supposed to be temporary storage until a more suitable location for it could be found. To move the massive limestone statue, workers had to cut it into four pieces. What happened to it after that is a mystery. This was before the city kept an inventory of public monuments, and there was no record that the Colossus ever arrived at the storage yard. The fate of a significant work by a prominent Oregon sculptor may never be known.

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The Ainsworth Building

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The Oregonian file photo

The northwest corner of Southwest Third Avenue and Oak Street has been a surface parking lot since 1955. Before that, it was the site of the Ainsworth Building, one of the finest examples of Portland’s cast-iron architecture. The 1888 building, which was designed by San Francisco architect Clinton Day, was built by John Ainsworth to house a bank that would bear his name. The building cost $100,000 to complete, which made it the most expensive Portland building at the time.

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University of Oregon Libraries

Over the years, the building was home to numerous businesses. In addition to the bank, the Episcopal church maintained offices here, and upper floors were used as music studios. The building also featured a restaurant and a tavern. By the 1950s, American car culture dominated the city, and the building’s owners decided that a parking lot would be more profitable than a beautiful old building. Because of its solid construction, the Ainsworth Building had to be torn down floor by floor (seen here in 1955 after the top floor of the building had been removed). You can still see a few examples of Portland’s cast-iron architecture in Old Town, but the crown-jewel Ainsworth Building is forever lost.

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Wyland's 'Whaling Wall'

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Portland City Archives, A2004-002.2732

In the 1990s, downtown Portland's Fox Theatre featured a large mural of whales that was loved by legions. In 1993, the Hawaii-based artist Wyland painted one of his "Whaling Wall" murals on the 120-foot back of the theater. The mural, called "Orcas of the Oregon Coast," showed a pod of orcas swimming through Pacific Northwest waters, with one of the whales breaching. The artist said that he viewed the murals as a way to promote environmentalism.

“I thought if people saw these beautiful animals in their true size, they would be moved to protect them,” he told The Oregonian at the time.

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Dana E. Olsen, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Fascinated by marine animals but frustrated by small canvases, Wyland painted his first Whaling Wall in Laguna Beach, Calif., in 1981. He made it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1992 for wall No. 33 in Long Beach, Calif., a circular structure that measured 1,280 feet around and 10 stories high.

But the walls weren’t just about bringing fame to the artist. Wyland said he hoped they would inspire a new generation: “If just one kid sees the mural and grows up and becomes another Cousteau, then I feel like all this effort is going to be worth it.”

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Dana E. Olsen, The Oregonian/OregonLive

But there was no protecting Wyland’s mural from the march of progress. Both the Fox Theatre and its Wyland “Whaling Wall” were demolished in May 1997 to make way for the new high-rise Fox Tower. All that’s left of the painted pod of orcas are photos and memories.

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Portland Gas & Coke Co. building

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Courtesy of photographer Jody Miller

The haunting Victorian building near the St. Johns Bridge on U.S. 30 was one of Portland’s most-photographed buildings before it was demolished in 2015. The industrial building, which was built in 1913 and was commonly called "GasCo," was the headquarters of Portland Gas & Coke, which eventually became NW Natural. The company operated a plant on the same site as the building, that was used to extract natural gas from coal and oil. Not surprisingly, that left the entire site contaminated will all sorts of toxins.

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Stephanie Yao Long, The Oregonian/OregonLive

After the building and plant were shut down in 1956, it was neglected and suffered from rotting wood and a bad roof that left the structure unstable. Fans of the building’s architecture tried to prevent its demolition, but were unsuccessful because the structure was too contaminated to be safely reused. The short-sightedness here was letting the site get so filthy that there was nothing that could be done but level the building. It lives on, though, in film – it’s featured prominently in a number of movies that were filmed in Oregon during the last decade of its life, including the independent films “Old Joy” and “Wendy and Lucy.”

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The Lovejoy Columns of Tom Stefopoulos

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The Oregonian file photo

The Lovejoy Columns were created by Tom Stefopoulos in the late 1940s on the support columns of the Lovejoy ramp leading up to the west side of the Broadway Bridge, where he worked as a rail-crossing watchman. While waiting for trains, Stefopoulos began making chalk drawings on the tall, blank pillars under the viaduct. The drawings were a mix of imagery from the Bible and Greek mythology.

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The Oregonian file photos

Because of their tucked-out-of-sight location under the Lovejoy viaduct, not everyone knew of the columns’ existence. After the railroad moved Stefopoulos to a different crossing in 1952, he stopped drawing. When The Oregonian did a feature on the columns in 1962, it checked in on the artist: “Tom E. Stefopoulos, the little Greek railway watchman who did the drawings, is still very much alive. So is his collection of Daliesque works. The passing years have not eroded their luster. And only one painting -- a portrait of General Douglas MacArthur -- has been defaced by vandals. Stefopoulos does little drawing today, but still manifests an interest in art. On the wall of his shack at Northwest 14th and Thurman, there's a single picture -- a Playboy ‘Playmate.’”

Stefopoulos died in 1971.

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John M. Vincent, The Oregonian/OregonLive

In 1989, the columns were featured prominently in Gus Van Sant’s film “Drugstore Cowboy.”

In 1998, efforts were made to preserve the columns after plans were announced to demolish the Lovejoy viaduct the following year to make way for Pearl District development. But funding efforts fell short, and only two of the 10 columns were preserved. They can be seen at the Elizabeth Plaza at Northwest 10th Avenue between Everett and Flanders streets.

The remaining columns were moved to a storage yard, where exposure to weather and vandalism has destroyed most of Stefopoulos’ art. To get the Pearl District that we have today, the Lovejoy viaduct had to go away. But losing all but two of the Lovejoy Columns proved a high price to pay.

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The Charles M. Forbes house

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Oregon State Historic Preservation Office

Gadzooks! It’s hard to believe that Portland ever had such an elaborately detailed Victorian home as the 1887 Charles M. Forbes house, which was located on the northwest corner of what’s now Southwest Vista Avenue and Park Place. Forbes co-owned the Forbes & Breeden furniture business, before his death in 1895.

The book “Classic Houses of Portland 1850-1950,” offers a detailed description of the house: “Forbes House managed to convey a gesture of ultimate decoration; every element, every surface, received maximum attention. The house used a typical asymmetrical plan, extended gable system, and corner tower, but it added considerably more. The gables had an extremely steep pitch, ending with rounded shoulders; the pierced and laced bargeboards were fanciful beyond belief; the windows were of extraordinary shape, with quatrefoils entwined with lancets; the wrap-around veranda not only had spindles, but stalactite pendants and imaginatively adorned railings as well; and the tower, nearly hidden in its surroundings, had a fine conical roof, facade dormers, and almost Tibetan-inspired finials. Gabled balconies project from every facade, providing what must have been magnificent viewing of the city and mountains beyond.”

The house was demolished in 1929, and a plain-looking 10-story condominium building, built in 1960, is now on the site. It’s fun to imagine the Forbes house still standing (but can you imagine what it must have been like to paint all that ornamentation?).

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Packy's Old Town mural

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Benjamin Brink, The Oregonian/OregonLive

When the Oregon Zoo's much-loved elephant Packy died earlier this year, it felt like Portland lost a bit of its soul. In truth, the city started saying goodbye to the celebrated pachyderm almost a decade ago, when a wonderful mural depicting Packy on the side of the Skidmore Fountain Building in Old Town was destroyed. The mural, which loomed over the west end of the Burnside Bridge, was painted in 1990 by North Pacific Sign & Design, and featured a close up of Packy's distinctive trunk and ears.

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Faith Cathcart, The Oregonian/OregonLive

When the building became the new headquarters for Mercy Corps in 2009, the $25 million renovation included cutting numerous windows into the exterior wall, as well as restoring the crumbling bricks. To preserve the historic building, the mural version of Packy had to be put down. Poor Packy!

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The Lewis and Clark Exposition buildings

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The Oregonian file photo

In 1905, the world converged on Portland for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, attracting 1.6 million visitors during its 4-1/2 month run. Visitors were dazzled by buildings that had been specially constructed for the fair, including the ornate Foreign Exhibits Building (above), which housed the displays of 14 nations. This structure cost the state more than $52,000, and was centrally located on the exposition grounds, which were in Northwest Portland surrounding Guild’s Lake, an offshoot of the Willamette River that the fair was built around.

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The Oregonian file photo

Another dazzling structure was the Missouri Building (above), one of several state-specific exhibits. For all their beauty, almost all of the exposition’s buildings were built with only the short-term in mind, and most were torn down the following year. Guild’s Lake was eventually filled in, and became the industrial area of Northwest that’s home today to large warehouses, small factories, and industrial blight.

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Michael Lloyd, The Oregonian/OregonLive

One of the few structures from the exposition that survived was the National Cash Register Building, an exhibit devoted to commerce. The entire building was relocated – floated by barge down the Willamette! – to the St. Johns neighborhood in North Portland, where for years it operated under various businesses, including a bingo parlor, a church, an Irish pub, and Salazar’s Hall (above), a place to have wedding receptions and banquets.

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Stephanie Yao Long, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Cash Register Building later became McMenamins St. John's Theater & Pub, where today you can see a first-run movie, dig into a basket of tater tots, and sit outside by a fire pit on a cool summer night. We don't have those other Lewis and Clark Exposition buildings to marvel at, but at least this beauty is still around.

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The Congress Hotel

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The Oregonian file photo

One of Portland’s loveliest old hotels couldn’t escape the wrecking ball. The Congress Hotel opened in 1912 at the Northeast Corner of Southwest Sixth Avenue and Main Street, and featured 119 well-appointed rooms. Because of its close proximity to City Hall and court houses, it was a popular spot for travelers with government business, and over the years high-powered names like Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy dropped by (and, according to The Oregonian, both failed to pay their bar tabs).

The Congress became a popular spot for business lunches and after-work drinks, thanks to its rollicking Pompeiian Room lounge and River Room restaurant.

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Randy L. Rasmussen, The Oregonian

Civic progress cut into business at the Congress in the 1970s, when construction of the downtown transit mall made getting into the hotel a logistical challenge. The owner at the time told The Oregonian that construction made business drop off by more than 40 percent. The hotel closed in 1977.

After being torn down, the block became the unappealing Orbanco Building, which resembles the monolith from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The new building was later renamed the Congress Center in honor of the old hotel. You can still breathe in the memories of the Congress, thanks to the terra cotta gazebo that leads to the underground Melting Pot fondue restaurant. Those arches were made from salvaged pieces of the Congress façade.

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The Jantzen Beach Amusement Park

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The Oregonian file photo

From 1928 to 1970, North Portland’s Hayden Island was home to the Jantzen Beach Amusement Park, one of several places in Portland to ride carnival ride and experience a West Coast take on Coney Island, complete with a massive wooden roller coaster called the Dipper.

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Herb Alden, The Oregon Journal (Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society)

During its peak, the amusement park attracted thousands of people every day. In the summertime, the park’s two large swimming pools were a particular draw. In 1963, when this photo was taken, was still packing them in. In the back, you can see a domed structure that was home to the park’s popular merry-go-round, a 1921 C.W. Parker carousel.

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Bruce McCurtain, The Oregonian

But business tapered off in the 1960s, and by 1970 the park closed for good, and the Dipper was demolished (though wood from the roller coaster can still be found – it was used to make the bar at Southeast Portland's Ken's Artisan Pizza). The park was replaced with the Jantzen Beach Shopping Center, which has undergone numerous renovations over the years to try to attract customers. Just last week, the shopping center was sold again.

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Herb Alden, The Oregon Journal (Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society)

Many Portlanders worry that a popular attraction of the amusement park may also have been lost forever. When the Jantzen Beach Shopping Center opened in 1972, it featured the park’s C.W. Parker carousel, complete with four rows of 72 horses and carriages spanning its 66½-foot diameter. In 1995, the carousel was completely restored at a cost of a little more than $500,000. But in 2012, the carousel disappeared when the mall was remodeled to make it less depressing.

The mall’s owners promised to restore and reopen the carousel, but have been mum about its condition or whereabouts since 2015. When the mall was sold last week, a spokeswoman from the selling company issued a statement: "Rest assured that the Jantzen Beach carousel remains in safe storage."

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Looking for more Portland history?

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Collage by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Looking for more slices of Portland's past? You’re in luck:

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-- Grant Butler

gbutler@oregonian.com

503-221-8566; @grantbutler