Last Days of the Portland West Side Auto Camp

Motor Court, rear view, from SW Pendleton Street, 1953.

Motor Court, rear view, from SW Pendleton Street, 1953.

 

Carolyn Rust sent us this view of the Portland West Side Auto Camp, The first auto camp in Southwest Portland.  Read more about the auto camp in our December 2, 2012 Picture of the Week.  This shows the camp shortly before it was razed.  It had evolved (devolved?) to a trailer park by 1953.

Carolyn writes: The address of the house about to be built on this lot is 1516 SW Pendleton St.  Dad took this picture looking south when they first broke ground and captured the last vestiges of the motor court.  I think I sent you this story a few years ago, but I remember my mother taking some of the clothes we’d outgrown to a woman who was living in one of those cabins with several children.  Within a year of moving there the rest of the motor court was demolished in preparation for putting in Dewitt St. and the fire station and library.  My parents were Lois and Dick Rust, and that’s our green 1953 Buick parked in front.  Beyond the trees is Capitol Hwy and the Fulton Park Dairy which was soon to become Wilson HS.  Hillsdale, as we know it, was yet to be built.

Carolyn Sturges, writing to us after our Fall 2011 article on Barbur Boulevard Motels described the cabin she lived in at the Hillsdale Motor Court in 1940 as “shabby but serviceable.”

The picture below shows the original cabins outlined in red.  Originally there were two cabins separated by two parking spaces.  Later on the parking spaces became garages, and finally additional living space.

 

Motor Court, rear view, from SW Pendleton Street, 1953.

Motor Court, rear view, from SW Pendleton Street, 1953.

 

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