A lithograph of Portland High School at Southwest 14th Avenue and Morrison Street. Built in the 1880s, it was razed in 1929. (Oregonian archives)

For any Portlander who recognizes that old buildings have stories to tell, Val C. Ballestrem should be your go-to historian. Ballestrem's just-released book, "Lost Portland" (The History Press, $21.99), highlights grand structures that have disappeared from Stumptown over the years.

The book certainly will cause readers a pang or two of wistfulness, for Portland has lost its fair share of irreplaceable landmarks. But it's not a maudlin tome. Every city, after all, is a brick-and-mortar phoenix, constantly destroying itself and rising again. The story of that cycle is sometimes depressing, sure, but sometimes it's also exhilarating.

Inspired by "Lost Portland," we dipped into The Oregonian's archives and pulled out images of some of the buildings whose lives and deaths Ballestrem chronicles. Here you can see them, variously, in all their glory, in decay, and even in the midst of being destroyed completely.

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The Oregonian file

St. Helen's Hall

In the 1890s, the Episcopal Church of Oregon and Washington built a four-story hillside building on SW Vista for its girls' boarding and day school. A fire destroyed the building in 1914. The school long ago merged into the Oregon Episcopal School, which is at 6300 S.W. Nichol Road.

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The Oregonian file

The C.M. Forbes House

This house, located at Southwest Vista and Park Place a block from St. Helens Hall, appeared on postcards that tourists and travelers could buy at downtown Portland pharmacies and stores. Its owner, Charles Forbes, ran a successful furniture business in the late 19th century and also served on the Portland City Council. The house was knocked down around 1929 and eventually replaced with an apartment building.

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The Oregonian file

Washington Building

This 1889 building, called "exuberant" by Ballestrem and "one of the most unique designs to ever grace downtown," rose up at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Washington Street. The whimsical tower was severely remodeled in the mid-1930s to make it appear more "modern." It came down in 1964, replaced by a parking garage.

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The Oregonian file

The Corbett House

The large house at Southwest Fifth Avenue and Taylor Street, owned by 19th-century U.S. Senator Henry Corbett, was "one of many local centers of gracious entertaining," The Oregonian wrote. The house was torn down in 1936.

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The front hall mirror from Sen. Henry Corbett's house during the house's heyday.

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Minor White/Portland Art Museum/Oregonian file

Isaac Jacobs House

The 1882 house stood in the South Park Blocks until coming down in 1940, to be replaced by apartment buildings. This photo was made by noted photographer Minor White in 1938.

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Minor White/Portland Art Museum/Oregonian file

Another view of the house, photographed by Minor White.

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Minor White/Portland Art Museum/Oregonian file

Dodd Block

The 1888 Dodd Building, at Southwest Front Avenue (now Naito Parkway) and Ankeny Street, during the Great Depression. It's one of photographer Minor White's iconic images of long-gone old Portland.

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University of Oregon

An 1890 drawing of the Dodd Block.

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Minor White/Portland Art Museum/Oregonian file/public domain

The Iron Fronts

The "Iron Fronts," circa 1939.

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Worcester Block

The original 1889 office building at Southwest Third Avenue and Oak Street and its connected 1891 twin at Third and Pine featured an "early electric elevator."

In its later years, as its desirability faded, the block housed a venereal-disease clinic and offices for the Socialist Labor Party.

Wrote The Oregonian at the time of the block's 1941 demolition: "The 100-ft. by 200-ft. site on which the structure stands will be used for a service station and parking lot." The service station and parking lot were never built.

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The Oregonian Tower

In the 19th- and early 20th centuries, metropolitan newspapers around the country built downtown towers to symbolize their importance to the communities they served. The Oregonian was no exception, raising a Romanesque Revival building with a clock tower at Southwest Sixth Avenue and Alder Street in 1892. It was the tallest building in the city for more than a decade.

In the 1940s, The Oregonian moved into a new building on Southwest Broadway, and in 1950 the tower was pulled down. The Oregonian now leases space on Southwest First Avenue.

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The Oregonian file

Knapp House

Businessman Richard Knapp's 1880s house stood at Northwest Davis and Everett streets between 17th and 18th avenues. Knapp, Ballestrem writes, "lost much of his fortune in the 1893 economic panic; he lost the house to foreclosure in 1897." The house was demolished in 1951, making way for a parking lot.

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Portland Hotel

The iconic 1890 hotel housed U.S. presidents, entertainment stars and industrialists. Meier & Frank bought the hotel and tore it down in 1951 to provide more parking for its downtown store. The site is now Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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The Ainsworth Building

The striking 1880 Ainsworth Building stood at Southwest Third Avenue and Oak Street. At the time it was the most expensive building ever constructed in Portland. It's seen here in the 1950s after falling into disrepair.

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University of Oregon Libraries/Oregonian file

Because of its solid construction, the Ainsworth Building had to be torn down floor by floor, and is seen here in 1955 after the top floor of the building had been removed.

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Oregoniani file

Perkins Hotel

The 1891 hotel at Southwest Fifth Avenue and Washington Street featured a large, gold cedar steer tucked into an alcove near the roofline -- a nod to developer Richard Perkins' cattleman background. The hotel came down in 1961.

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The Oregonian file

Perkins' gilded cow is now stored at the Oregon Historical Society.

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The Oregonian file

St. Mary's Academy

Wreckers tore down the St. Mary's Academy building, at Southwest Fourth and Fifth avenues and Mill Street, in 1970.

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St. Vincent's Hospital

The entrance to the 1890s St. Vincent's Hospital, here being opened by Sister Flora Mary, on what is now Northwest Westover Road.

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George Schnabel was the "unofficial salvage superintendent" of the old St. Vincent's Hospital, which was demolished in the 1970s.

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The Oregonian file

Jeanne D'Arc

The Catholic Sisters of Mercy took over the 1891 residential hotel in 1919, renaming it the Jeanne d'Arc. The building, at Southwest 14th Avenue near Jefferson Street, was demolished in 1977.

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The Oregonian file

Congress Hotel

The luxury hotel, built in 1911-12 at Southwest Sixth Avenue and Main Street, prospered for decades. It closed in 1977.

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"Change is pending for one of Portland's oldest first-class hotels," The Oregonian wrote shortly before it closed. "The Congress may be sold or developed into a different type of business."

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Gov. Bob Straub and his wife attended a "wake" for the Congress Hotel shortly before it was demolished in 1978.

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The Oregonian file

Lenox Hotel

The Lenox Hotel on Third Ave., between Main and Madison, opened in 1907. Wrote The Oregonian as demolition work started in 1980: "The block is being razed to make way for a new county detention center and Portland Police Bureau headquarters."

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The Oregonian file

Corbett Building

The 1907 building stood on Southwest Fifth Avenue between Morrison and Yamhill streets. Ballestrem writes that it "represented the arrival of the modern steel-framed skyscraper to Portland."

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Demolition experts brought down the Corbett in 1988. "It took less than 5 seconds" for the historic building to be reduced to a cloud of debris, The Oregonian reported.

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The Oregonian file

Goodnough Building

The 1891 Romanesque building, located near the Corbett, served for years as the home of the Oregon Journal newspaper. The Goodnough fell into decline by the middle of the 20th century. It was demolished in 1988.

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Courtesy of NW Natural/Oregonian file

Portland Gas & Coke Co. Building

This photo shows workers who were constructing the Portland Gas & Coke Co. administrative building. The North Portland plant, near the St. Johns Bridge, operated from 1913 to 1956.

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NW Natural/Oregonian file

For years the empty Portland Gas & Coke Co. administrative building, which was all that remained of the gas facility, fascinated passing drivers on U.S. 30.

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The Portland Gas & Coke Co. building in 2015.

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The building was finally demolished in 2015.

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Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple

This image captures the 1892 downtown building, which once housed the Oregon Historical Society, as demolition began in 2017.

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The Oregonian file

"There's not another building in the city that looks like this one," lamented Portland architecture writer Brian Libby as the Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple came down. "It's both a grand and a knotty old building, like a beautiful old-growth sequoia or Doug Fir."

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The historic-preservation organization Restore Oregon unsuccessfully campaigned to save the Ancient Order of United Workmen Temple, calling it "one of Portland's most prominent remaining buildings from the 1890s."

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More

Did this whet your appetite for Rose City architectural history? Val Ballestrem's book, "Lost Portland," tells the stories of these and other buildings that helped define the Rose City.

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-- Douglas Perry

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The Oregonian

More

Want to dive deeper into Portland's endlessly fascinating history? Read on...

-- Portland gloried in its sexy, secret gambling dens in the 1930s

-- Why a Portland vice scandal in the 1950s riveted the nation

-- 1970s Portland was smutty, corrupt and dance-crazed

-- 1980s Portland: Gangs, skinheads ... and also something special

-- Portland in the 1990s: dirty, weird, a place to disappear

-- Iconic Portland photos from the 19th century to the 1940s

-- How Hawthorne district remade itself while retaining its character