The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1922-04-21
Random Ob.ervations.
Many Interesting Sidelights-Cur.
iOus Architecture OF 80 years
agO--OrnimentatiOn that Passeth
Understanding.
(BY FRANK Nj. DALLAM, SR.)

To stranger in a large city who
and disposition to nose around and
spy out places off the ordinary routes
of daily travel there are many feat
ures of interest to be found which
may not appeal to the blase older
habitant in whom familiarity has
bred contempt, or Indifference AS
Il stranger, and one who has been
long divorced from contact with city
life, these various objects of interest
are a novelty to us and have a charm
that is conducive to much pleasure
as we plOd around the city from one
place to another. Whether it be from
some vantage point from which vast
stretches of the city are spread out
before the eye; or on the water front
where craft Of every description, from
1iminutive motor boats sputtering
around like spunky and energetic fise
dogs to the great steel leviathans that
come. up from the sea to discharge
and take on cargOes. or down in the
wholesale districts where Portland
first started out to become a city of
considerable magnitude; or at the
consolidated depot. where mercurial
crowds of travellers are either just ar
irving from about every point of the
compass, or departing along the lines
just trayeled by those arrivals; or at
the various outlying suburbs reached
by an excellent street car system
where building Is going on with few
erish haste as though it were almost
| impossible to meet the growing de-
mand for habitations; or in the whirl
Of the jostling crowds in the shopping
districts, where professions of hui
manity like liquid streams flow along
he chief arteries of travel; or almost
anywhere within the limits of the big
Town, one with the capacity for obser-
vatiOn can always find something to
entertain. something that gives food
for thought, something to arouse
more than mere passing interest.
We have spent much time prying
around down in the wholesale quar-
Ter, the older section of the wholesale
quarter where the early birds to find
roost in Portland laid the founda-
ions of their fortunes and celebrated
The start by erecting buildings that
are architectural jokes in comparison
with the tall, stately, stable struct-
lres of the present generation. In
those days there was room on the
ground for all the space required i'm
building and it was not necessary as
it is today to push the clouds away
in order to meet the requirements
of builders who construct upon the
principle that the sky is their limit.
Hoary old piles are many of the ed
ifices along lower Main and First
streets, most of them two story with
here and there more ambitious me-
mortal of other days rearing its roof
to the height of three and four stor-
les. No doubt when first constructed
| the larger buildings were looked upon
as nine day wonder and the local
press went into a trance describing
the splendors of these new additions
to the growth of the leading city of
the Northwest, for such Portland was
when those buildings were young. 1t
| was the custom at that period to place
the date of construction on buildings
and we note that the Odd Fellows
Continued on Page A.