14 thoughts on “University of Oregon Medical School, circa 1937”

1. PP and L ‘s Lincoln Power Plant down on the river really stands out in the photo.

2. Whats the reason for the long viaduct coming off the west end of the Broadway bridge? Clearance for the railroad?

3. what an odd and costly decision it was to locate the hospitals on top of Markum Hill?
   Accessibility during the winter months is difficult and can be dangerous in icey conditions and the difficulty of building on such hilly terrain.

4. https://goo.gl/photos/ruVu9qyr6798eRyq6

5. This is a current view that nearly matches the photo.
   https://goo.gl/photos/ruVu9qyr6798eRyq6

6. @Craig,

   The land was donated. Not a great location, but hard to turn down free land.

7. Next to it to the left is the Multnomah County Hospital, if I recall correctly. And, Paul, the Lovejoy ramp carried Broadway Bridge traffic up to 14th in order to clear the wide RR yards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovejoy_Columns

8. My father was an administrator at OHSU from 1938 through 1982. He often mentioned that they had flat land somewhere in SW Portland available through donation or otherwise for expansion, but they opted instead to continue building on the hill, which he thought was a big mistake.

9. Susan, could that have been the land in South Waterfront where OHSU now has two new facilities?

10. @stiefve, I had always thought it was donated by the Marquam family, It seems very unlikely to me that a railroad would purchase land for a railroad facility without a survey, that just wouldn’t happen, railroads have a great deal of experience in buying and developing property. Assuming the land was donated, it would be easy to do a land swap for a more accessible site. Someone in power looked after their own self interest!

11. I’m not sure that the top of the hill was always seen as a “bad” location. It was fairly common in that era to locate hospitals and sanitariums in high places, because the air was presumed to be cleaner (and a hundred years ago, the air probably *was* cleaner up there).

12. best marquam hill railway story is that of the portland city homestead railway company, started by frank prantl. this funicular ran from second and gibbs to the marquam property… or would have, had prantl designed the winch properly. he went insane over the failure, and the ‘donkey’ engine sat abandoned for years before a logger moved it to washington and got it to work properly. it is supposedly still there, sitting in a forest….

13. In the 60s when they were building Portland Center I used to ride the Jackson Park bus to the dental school. Full of fear & dread.

14. Land donated by the OR&N Co., which had acquired it in the 1870s as a single large parcel that ran to the waterfront out of the Finice Caruthers estate fiasco, and had planned to use the lower parts as a terminal facility. The Marquams were no longer major property holders on the hill by the time it was decided to locate the hospitals there. Terwilliger Boulevard was one of the newest and least congested roads in the city leading directly to the area.