Last weekend's snow has melted away. But an urban myth about Northeast Portland's most righteous sledding run still lingers.

From the mailbag:

Whenever it snows on Alameda Ridge, the kids grab their sleds and head for Stuart Drive, the steepest street in the neighborhood. Everyone calls it "Deadman's Hill." But no one seems to know for sure how the hill got its name. Can you track down the origins?

Deadman's Hill. Yeah, sounds child-proof.

Let me pull up the science of that 50-yard pitch of asphalt just north of Alameda School.

Using the city's geographic mapping data, it looks like the grade of Northeast Stuart Drive between Alameda Drive (the top) and Regents Drive (the bottom) is about 13 percent.

Gah! That's definitely one of the steepest streets in the whole city. I get vertigo just trying to figure out how pavement sticks to it. Add snow and ice, and it's also probably one of Portland's fastest streets.

By comparison, the grueling Giro d'Italia bicycle race averages a less-extreme 12 percent grade through the Alps. In the West Hills, most of Germantown Road climbs at a gradient of between 5 and 9 percent.

For motorists, Stuart is one-way: Down. No traffic is allowed to go up the hill.

Physics dictates, nay, demands that it be called Deadman's Hill.

But we're here to talk about local history, not incline, slope and my barophobia.

Many of the sled-surfers atop of Stuart Drive will tell you the spooky name was born from a fatal wipeout involving a girl at the bottom of the hill.

Parents usually stand at the bottom to keep the neighborhood's bundled-up kids from skidding into traffic. But one girl, the story goes, lost control and flew under a car. The vehicle supposedly scalped the hair clean from the top of her head.

One long-time resident told me the kid actually slid under one of the old Broadway Streetcar trolleys, which climbed nearby Regents Drive from 1910 to 1948.

After searching The Oregonian's archives, however, I found zilch to support that origin story.

Sure, something similar happened in 1995. A 9-year-old girl on an old metal and wood Flyer sled went under a parked car. Although she suffered scalp lacerations, she lived. The Oregonian reported she was released from the hospital in a full body cast.

But she didn't even crash on Stuart Drive. She was sledding at 32nd Avenue and Fremont Street, about seven blocks away.

Alameda neighborhood historian Doug Decker said the dead man behind the hill's nickname is probably Fred A. Jacobs, a well-known Portland real-estate developer, art collector and civic leader, who died in a freakish car crash on Stuart Drive in 1917.

"Bad things have been happening when there are cars and gravity on that hill for many years," said Decker, who runs the excellent AlamedaHistory.org blog. "I don't know when the term 'Deadman's Hill' first arrived, but this is the only fatal accident documented in association with the hill."

On June 6, 1917, The Oregonian carried a story about the deadly car crash. At the time, Stuart was a two-way street. Jacobs and his business partner, J.P. Parker, were reportedly heading up Stuart to check on their rental properties.

Of course, in the dinosaur days of fuel injection, some vehicles had to be driven up steep hills in reverse to keep gas flowing to the engine.

Jacobs' car only made it halfway up Stuart before it sputtered and stalled.

As the vehicle rolled backwards, "Mr. Parker tried the emergency brake, but it would not hold and the car backed off the embankment, somersaulted and landed on its side," the paper reported.

In the confusion, Jacobs stood up and grabbed the steering wheel. Although he was thrown from the vehicle as it started to flip down the ridge, he managed to be "dragged along with the machine," The Oregonian reported.

Parker walked away with scrapes and bruises. Jacobs, who developed Montclair, Hyde Park and several other Portland housing subdivisions, died at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. He was 47. He left behind a wife, Gussie, and two children.

In the 1950s, the city actually barricaded Stuart Drive during snowstorms and designated it an official sledding hill.

Stuart Drive was one of the city's designated sledding hills during snowstorms in the 1950s.

How about this: Next time you're flying down Stuart, call it Jacobs' Hill? Just once to exorcize the urban myth And, you know, out of respect for the dead man.

Oh, and please wear a helmet.

-- Joseph Rose

503-221-8029

jrose@oregonian.com

@josephjrose