Nostalgia & History > Jasper, Oregon 1953 (none of this here now)

Jasper, Oregon in 1953. Taken from the east approach of the Jasper bridge, looking south. At the far end is the Hills Creek Store. Out of sight at the base of the fir tree that is directly behind the "76" sign is the Fir Tree Cafe. The "76" sign is on the Jasper Garage. I grew up in the Jasper Store that my folks owned. Two of our customes worked for the SP at Natron. Daughters of one, Mr. Parr, babysat me when I was five or six. The other was Mr. Bristow, great grandson of the first settler in the southern end of the Willamette Valley. Mr. Harmsworth owned the Jasper Garage and I graduated from Pleasant Hill High School with one of his daughters, Francis. Mr. Bristow had a son, Melvin. Mel and Francis were married after graduation and Mel went to work for the SP at Oakridge. He retired at Roseville when the UP took over. He was Division Engineer. By the time I could count money and look over the counter in the store I was cashing the two mens SP paychecks when they paid their monthly tab for groceries. The green phone booth on the porch of the store was the first dial phone south of Springfield. Until it was installed the phones were "Farmers Lines" that were 10 party lines. When the phone company brought service into the area it was by a cable that was strung on the SP poles along the track. The railroad is a couple hundred feet behind the store and the line to the pay phone was strung across our property. (we got dial phone service immediately after the pay phone) This phone was put in during the construction of the Lookout Point Dam and the project manager used to drive down here and use the pay phone for hours at a time. (closest dial phone to the construction) Between the Jasper Store and the Jasper Garage is Hadley Lane. It is the only thing left today in this pic. For you hoggers out of Eugene, between Hills Creek Road and Wallace Creek Road is an unmarked grade crossing. That's Hadley Lane. An apartment building is now where the store was and the Hills Creek Store is now the Jasper Store.

I recently posted photos of the Shasta Daylight and a cab forward. Both shots were directly to the left, maybe 100 yards away.

jb

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A wonderfully idyllic scene. I'll bet it had one of those pot belly stoves where locals would gather on a crisp Autumn day and discuss world events and the price of the local commodities. Thanks for the photo.

Great picture...1953 was the year I was born, so don't remember much of this. Great information. Thanks for sharing.
Todd M.

And in `64, I was living in a house just downriver from the A-frame house, I believe the Man that owned the houses down there was named Knight(Night)?, You probably knew the Neet family too. Dad lived in Fall Creek during the war. I think they had an Air Warden lookout tower in their yard.

Here is another pic from the back porch of the house.

Yes, the store had a pot belly stove where the locals met. The store was heated with wood and there was a woodshed out back that had to be filled every summer. There was one capn's chair and a bunch nail kegs for seats. Oranges came in a crate that had three square wooden panels about 16" square. Take that square, put it on a nail keg and you had a seat.

Pete Neet had the Hills Creek Store. (the one with Richfield on it)

The "A" frame I remember was down by Natron.

History of Natron: In 1853 Byron Johns Pengra arrived after taking the Oregon Trail through The Dalles. He took a Donation Land Claim (DLC1664) where the south switch of Natron is now. For a while he was the editor of newspaper and in 1862 Abraham Lincoln appointed him Surveyor General of Oregon. In 1865 he and W. H. Odell surveyed the route of the Oregon Central Military Road (to the south of Diamond Peak) over the Cascades with the idea that it would become a railroad at a later date. In the late 1860s he was promoting a railroad to the Humboldt with the backing of C. P. Huntington. He lost out on that to Ben Holladay and the route over the Siskiyous. Naturally the route he was proposing would cross his DLC. In 1890 Huntington was back in the picture and surveyed the railroad from Coburg to Jasper with rail reaching Pengras DLC at Natron in 1891.

Here is another shot from the back porch of the house I grew up in. The house is still there at the east end of the Jasper bridge. Can't see the track now for the trees.

jb

Edit: The obvious cable across the pic was the telephone company cable that was put on the railroad telegraph pole sometime around 1950.

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JDB, I really enjoy your history of the area. Other names that are in my family from the area were
Flock, Warner, Stewart Dompier. That could be one of the Dompier boys in the Black Widow. they had a special horn blast to say hi when we were living there in `63-`64

And yes, the A-frame was down near the Natron area, but still close to the Jasper store

Yep, good stuff. Black Widows and old country stores... what more could one ask?