Retailers

Lydia's China Shop - According to information from Mrs. O'Dell (Baum) Holkko, 1552 Zapata Drive, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762: "At one time Lydia Baum (daughter of Heinrich & Anna Margaret (nee Schlotthauer) Baum) owned a china and gift shop on the southwest corner of Union Avenue and Fremont. When we were young, my Grandfather's brother Henry Baum, wife Annie, and his son Henry Baum Jr., wife, Freida, and daughter Lydia lived across the street.

According to Lois Klaus "We bought all our wedding and nice gifts at Lydia's China Shop and I probably still have some things from there. It was sometime in the 50s. Lydia worked for Mrs. Weimer at the hardware store. Weimer's had a china and housewares department in their store. I believe that later, Lydia moved that department to the store at Union and Fremont. My mother bought her best set of dishes from Weimers. I still have them, although I don't use them because you can't put them in the dishwasher--too much gold."

Lydia Baum died in Multnomah County in 1960.

George Betz Florist - George Betz  (born 1858 in the German colony of Messer, Russia) arrived in Portland in March of 1883.  In 1886 he established a florist business at 292 Sellwood Street.  After twenty years at that location, he moved to 697 Williams Avenue where he built a greenhouse and a florist shop that was attached to the residence.  In 1907 he purchased eight acres of the Jennings Lodge tract in Clackamas County, three miles from Oregon City.  There he built an additional residence and more greenhouses.  By 1910 he had 40,000 square feet under glass and was one of the best-known florists in Portland.  His business became known as George Betz and Sons, Florists.  They had retail outlets at 349 ½ Morrison Street and 697 Williams Avenue.  His sons were Joseph, Charles, and George W. Betz.  About 1925 Charles moved to 94th and Clinton where he built greenhouses and specialized in raising Easter lilies. 

George Betz and his flower cart. Photograph contributed by Harriet Betz

George was a very gregarious person and a snappy dresser.  He always wore a red carnation.  His wife, Anna, and daughter, Sarah, were also very much involved in the business.  Everyone worked in the greenhouses even the grandchildren.  My dad remembers standing on a bench to weed the flowerbeds at four years of age.  My uncle Jack used to skip out to play baseball with his friends knowing he faced a whipping when he got home. Anna and Sarah and the wives of the Betz brothers often cooked for the hired help. 

Holidays were especially busy times for the Betz clan.  Most of the family income was made at Easter, Christmas, and Decoration Day (Memorial Day).  Extra high school and college age young people were hired.  After 1925 Charles Betz learned to make Easter lilies bloom at just the right time for Easter.  He persuaded stores like Safeway and Kress to carry his lilies.  Empty storefronts around town were rented temporarily and family and friends were pressed into service for the busy holiday.  My dad, Charles Jr. and his brother Jack sold flowers on the street corners, a job they both hated with a passion.  To this day my dad has a hard time passing a street corner flower stand without stopping to buy. 

Written by Frederick Betz 

Read a short story about Charles Betz titled "Schnickelfritz" written by his grandson, Frederick Betz 

Bolliger - the Shade Man - was located on Williams Avenue and then on Broadway. My Grandmother Pauline Kniss (1909 - Living) married Ernest Bolliger (1906 - 1985) in 1929 in Portland, Oregon. My Grandparents owned Bolliger the Shade Man, which was on Williams and then on Broadway. Pauline's parents Conrad Kniss and Catherine (unknown) came from Germany through Russia. Contributed by Scott Bolliger.

Bolliger the Shade Man located on Williams Avenue

City Sign Company - A sign painting company owned by George Webber. His brother Adam worked for him. Their family was from Brunnental, Russia.

Clarence Walker Florist - Walker had a shop located at 435 NE Killingsworth and another store downtown.  Clarence Walker attended Jefferson High School along with two famous Portlanders:   the actress, Jane Powell and the singer, Johnny Ray.

Dan & Louis Oyster Bar - Founded in 1907 by Louis C. Wachsmuth, Dan & Louis' Oyster Bar is, "a Portland tradition every visitor must experience!"  The Wachsmuth and Schreiber families have been involved in the Pacific Northwest oyster business since the mid-1800s.  Their Oregon Oyster Company has bought and sold oysters up and down the West Coast for over 100 years. This family-run seafood venture has for generations been a Portland institution. 

Erv Lind Florists - Mr. Lind was a very well known Portland florist and softball sponsor. The Erv Lind Stadium located in Normandale Park was built in 1948 and named in honor of Lind in 1965. Lind was the coach and manager of Portland's best known women's major fast pitch softball teams, the Erv Lind Florists, for 28 years, leading it to two Amateur Softball Association (ASA) National Championships (1944 and 1964). Under Lind, the team compiled a record of 1,113 wins and 324 losses. Many German-Russian's played for his teams. Erv Lind stadium has been the home softball field of Portland State University for 20 years. Erv Lind was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.

Brauer Shoe Store - Brauer's was located on NE Union Avenue.

Jacob Eberle at work in his store. Photograph contributed by Constance Bell Smith, Granddaughter of Jacob Eberle.

Eberle's Shoe Store - Eberle's was located at NE Russell and Union for over 60 years. This store was very popular with the German Russian's and many people recall buying their shoes there. The Eberle family was from Mannheim, Russia.

Geist Shoe and Dry Goods Advertisement

Geist Dry Goods and Shoe Store - This shop was located at 829-831 (and later at 3933) NE Union Avenue. The store was owned by Gottfried Geist (1884-1962) who was born in Kraft, Russia. The store was operated by Gottfried's son, Robert (Bob) after his death. Gottried Geist was married to Elizabeth (maiden name of Bauer) who was also born in Russia and died in Portland in 1971. According to the 1930 U.S. Census the Geist family lived at  894 N. Mason St. Weimers Hardware and Furniture store was located directly across the street.  Dr. Uhle and Dr. Schiewe had offices upstairs above Geist's store.

Connie Hinkle - Connie sold butter and eggs from house to house.

Earl Marks Company located on Union Avenue  - The Wilhelm and Anna Marks family settled in Portland's Albina district in 1890 emigrated from Rudne, South Russia (now Ukraine).  Their children were : Emily, William T., John C., Rosa, and Lydia. The family members owned this business and the two shown below.  The Marks family also owned Ted Marks Body and Fender on Union Avenue, Marks Motors on Sandy Blvd., Marks Paint and Appliance on SE 82nd and Foster. For more information contact Gary Marks.

McCormick & Schmick Restaurants - Doug Schmick is president and CEO of McCormick & Schmick Management Group.  Doug Schmick was raised on a farm near Endicott, Washington.

John Pauli - John Pauli sold butter and eggs from house to house.  Mr. Pauli bought "sweet butter" from Washington to resell in Portland.

Phil's Bicycle Shop - Owned by Phil Hohnstein this establishment was a haven for cyclists and a fixture in Portland since 1945.  The shop was located on NE 7th and Broadway.  Phil Hohnstein, known simply as "Mr. Bicycle" died in 1984. 

Steinfeld's Products - This Portland company was founded by Henry and Barbara Steinfeld and began business in 1922 in St. John's at the intersection of North Allegheny Avenue and North Olympia Street on the 4.5-acre site.  The company produced sauerkraut and pickles in their garage which they sold at the Farmer's Market on Yamhill Street in Portland. The original factory was was gutted in an early-morning fire in January 1978.  When they built the new plant in 1980, Steinfeld's owners relocated a few miles away on a 15-acre lot in the Rivergate Industrial Park, at 10001 N. Rivergate Blvd.  Steinfeld's is well known for their pickles, relish, mustard, peppers, sauerkraut, and more...  The company produced sauerkraut and pickles in their garage which they sold at the Farmer's Market on Yamhill Street in Portland.  Steinfeld's was purchased by Dean Foods Co. in 2000.

The Weimer's Furniture sign as seen from from Martin Luther King Avenue

Weimer's Hardware and Furniture - Weimer's was located on N.E. Union Avenue (now MLK Blvd.) across from Geist Store.

The former Weimer's store structure is now known as the Heritage Building, which has stood in the middle of the block between Failing and Shaver for decades. Gottfried Weimer (born 1892)  opened a furniture store in the building in 1922, and he lived next door at 3946 NE Union (now MLK). Gottfried Weimer was a Volga German who left Russia and headed to the Pacific Northwest.

The current Heritage Building is the former Weimer's store

Conrad Brill, one of the members of the Volga German community arriving in Portland, wrote about his memories in an unpublished book, “Memories of Norka”. Brill remembered Gottfriend Weimer well, and described him thus:

Mr. Weimer was himself a poor immigrant, who repaired and re-blackened staves for his fellow countrymen, after coming from Kraft. He made rounds from house to house. He had roomed and boarded with a family, whose daughter he then married. He bought an old tumble down place on Union Avenue where he set up a repair shop and dealt in new and used stoves. Later he would build new from ground up, with financial loans from fellow Germans, which were transacted with a handshake. He went on to become one of the most successful businessmen in our community, selling on the installment plan. His customers were mostly Volga Germans.

Weimer’s Furniture stored stayed open for 47 years, and had a second floor ballroom that was used for dances by the German American Club. The ballroom was forced to close during the second world war; as Conrad Brill explained:

When Mr. Weimer built his hardware store, they built a large dancehall above it for communal dances. A group, including Mr. Weimer, Mr. Geist, Dr. Uhle and others formed a German American Club and there were many good times at Weimer’s dancehall. When WWII started these clubs were frowned on as much as the Japanese peoples right to live on the West Coast. Dr. Uhle was a very outspoken man who got into several arguments at the hospital with one specific Jewish doctor. He was accused of being un-American for his outspoken feelings and the German American Club was named as un-American and closed up. Dr. Uhle was sent east as far as Chicago. The others explained to the authorities that they were German speaking people who actually were from Russia and not German Nationals, so other than closing the club all went well for them.

Weimer’s, as well as a number of other German businesses, remained in Albina and on Union Avenue for a long time, some remaining on the street for decades, even as the population of the surrounding neighborhood began to change. The Germans, and other European immigrant communities, became less notable in the area, and the rising African-American population that began arriving in Albina after the Vanport Flood of 1948 began to reshape Albina.

Lawrence (Bud) Weimer took charge of Weimer’s, and managed it until riots broke out in Albina in the summer of 1969, and the building was damaged. That summer was the third in four years that disturbances in the area had broken out, and the troubles in June 1969 were extensive, violent, and lasted for several days. The Oregonian (June 17, 1969), in an article called “Police, Witness, Participants Offer Explanations for Albina Disorders”, reported that:

Two versions are being reported of the cause of disturbances that erupted in the Albina area over the weekend.

Police say disorderly youths who ignored an order to disperse from NE Union Avenue and Shaver Street are to blame…

George Davis, night manager of Lidio’s Drive In Restaurant, 4011 NE Union St., [sic] said the troubles started when the officers used their clubs on two Negro girls they were attempting to arrest.

Kent Ford, who identifies himself as a captain in the Black Panthers,… arrested Saturday morning on a charge of inciting a riot, said police provoked the incident as an excuse for jailing Black Panthers and other Negro militants.

“The whole thing here is freedom, and the police don’t want us to have it,” said Ford….

“We want fascist pigs (police) out of the Albina district. We don’t need those pigs here,” Kent said.

Capt. [William] Taylor [commander of the Police Bureau] said Negro militants have been attempting to agitate trouble in the area… Shirt-sleeve weather and hot nights… also were given by Capt. Taylor as possible reasons setting off the disturbances.

The Weimer building had been damaged at the very outset of the troubles on June 14. When police responded to complaints about youth in the area throwing rocks and bottles, they arrived to find roughly 150 teen-agers gathered, a a fight between the youths and the police broke out. Trouble spread onto Union Avenue, and during the fight, several people were pulled from their vehicles by youths and beaten. One was a taxi driver, whose vehicle was “still in gear [and] rolled into the show window of Weimer’s Furniture Store at 3934 NE Union Ave.” (Oregonian, June 15, 1969).

(”Blacks Said Responsible to Entire Community,” Oregonian, June 17, 1969:

“Responsibility of blacks is not just to the ghetto, but to the total community,” black students at Portland State University were told Monday.

Patricia Roberts Harris, first American black woman to become an ambassador, spoke at a noon luncheon at Portland State to kickoff the Martin Luther King scholarship fund drive. She said she wanted to see more blacks in positions of major leadership, not just leadership in the ghetto.

“Whites take comfort when they can point to some of us successful blacks,” said Mrs. Harris. “But the truth of it is there are so few of us that it isn’t significant.”)

Worse was yet to come, for Albina and for the Weimer building. Rioting and police confrontations continued on and off for several days, until a wave of fires broke out on the evening of June 17. The Weimer building was among those torched; the Oregonian reported that efforts to fight the fires were hampered by a fire hydrant whose water had been turned off (police were dispatched to guard hydrants in the area) and the beating of a fireman.

The Oregonian reported (June 19, 1969), in an article titled “Calm Returns to Fire-Scarred Albina: Area Residents Quiet, Tense In Face of Police Patrols”:

The Alberta Furniture Store at 1905 NE Alberta St., and Weimer’s Furniture Co., 3838 NE Union Ave., were destroyed by what police described as “a better class of firebombs” than have been used in the four nights of unrest in Albina. Damage at each store was put at $200,000…. Thirty to 40 fire alarms were called during the night, and police reported that members of the Black Panther organization were maintaining a “firebomb depot” on NE Garfield Avenue.

Attempts to fight fires were again reportedly hampered by assaults on fire hydrants and firefighters, and someone shot a hole in a firehose.

The same article reported that several dozen young people picketed at City Hall to protest the arrest of the Black Panthers, writing that the “happy protestors, all white, carried signs about police brutality and references to ‘pigs’ (police). Few saw their marching and a lone policeman in a stopped squad car did not bother them.”

(Oregonian, June 18, 1969 headline: “Officials Promise Study of NE Youth Program”; June 19, 1969 headline: “Black Panther Aim Held To Wreck U.S. Industry)

An article in the Oregonian on June 19, “Troubled Times in Albina,” reported on the deliberations of a number of Union Avenue business owners on whether to stay on the Avenue. Lawrence Weimer reported that there was no way he would reopen Weimer’s, though he hoped to salvage the building enough that it could be used as a warehouse. After 47 years on the street, Weimer’s was out of business.

In 2005, the long-empty “Weimer Warehouse” began undergoing renovation, and its transformation into the Heritage Building began. The Portland Development Commission had purchased the building in 1999, for $400,000, and in 2001 developers Eric Wentland and Jeana Woolley won the bid to redevelop the building. Renovation expanded the building from 18 to 30 thousand square feet, with ground-level commercial space and a variety of office spaces inside. The developers struggled to find financing to begin the renovation, and in 2005 the PDC stepped up with a $2.4 million loan, with Albina Community Bank providing the remaining financing.

‘Green’ and ’sustainable’ were key components of the building’s renovation. You can read up on some of the aspects of the building’s sustainability here, and here.

Wildwood Restaurant - Currently one of Portland's finest restaurants, Wildwood is located at 1221 NW 21st Avenue.  Chef Cory Schreiber, whose ancestors are from Norka, opened Wildwood Restaurant six years ago and has rapidly become a leading figure in the Pacific Northwest's bustling culinary scene. Schreiber won the James Beard Award in 1998 for Best Chef Pacific Northwest – a fitting tribute to a man who cherishes the land, its people, and produce, much in the same way as Beard, a native Oregonian himself, did. A fourth generation restaurateur in Portland, Schreiber lives and breathes the “Cooking from the Source” mantra, emphasizing organic produce, local game, meats, seafood, and dairy products, prepared in ways that allow the natural beauty and flavors of the ingredients to shine forth, unobstructed by fussy embellishments.

Services

Cook's Cleaners - located in Tigard and Beaverton were owned by Roy Koch. Roy's family was from Kolb, Russia.

Helser Bros. Transfer Company

My grandfather started and owned Helser Bros. Transfer Co. in Portland. His name was John Charles Helser and I believe he started the business either with his father or a brother. My father Marnell Raymond Helser owned the business after John C. Helser died. My father died in 1948 and my mother Lucy Lee Thomas Helser ran the business until she sold it to Green Transfer in about 1950 or 1951.  Helser Bros. remains in business today at 7025 N. Leadbetter Road in Portland. 

My family came to the US between 1876 and 1880. One of my grandfathers brothers was born Sept. 16 1876 in Russia and his brother was born Jan. 1 1880 in Hastings, Nebraska, Adams Co. My grandfather was born Sept. 12 1881 in Hastings, Nebraska. They moved to Portland when my grandfather John Charles Helser was 11 years old in 1892.  My Helser family must have been one of the first families to come to America.  In going back through my notes, Helser Bros. Transfer Co. was started about 1902 by my grandfather John C. and Henry Helzer.  At this point I'm not sure which Henry Helzer it was, but I assume it was John C. Helsers' brother Henry who was born Sept. 27, 1868 in Norka. 

When my dad owned Helser Bros. it was in NW Portland down by the water front. Next door to the company was a family of Gipsy' s. I was about 5 years old. My dad died in 1948 at the age of 42.

The picture of the house (shown above) was probable taken in NE Portland, I think that is where the Helser family lived.  I have in my    notes that they attended the Baptist Church on the corner of Morris and Rodney. I also have in my notes that Katherine Helzer has a brother Adam Helzer and a sister Mrs. John Rattey.  I was looking at my notes I took about 10 years ago and find that Jim and Teri Helser now own Helser Bros.  I believe Jim is one of Morrie Helsers' son's. Morrie was my dad, Marnell Raymond Helser's cousin.  Morrie's father was Henry H. born Sept. 27, 1868.

The Helser's came from Norka, Saratov, Russia.  Their surname in Russia was HOELZER, it was changed to HELZER after they came to the USA. My grandfather changed our name to HELSER sometime in the early 1900 because the HELZERs in Portland were garbage men. That is what I was told by my Aunt Thema Helser. My grandfather, John C. HELSER died in 1929, twelve years before I was born.

Submitted by Marna L. Hing (nee Helser)

George Bauer's Barbershop - This barbershop was located on NE Union Avenue next to Krombein's.

John Bettger - Barbershop

Gerlach Towing

John Huck, Sr. - Tailor - The shop was located on Union Ave. His home was on NE 12th and Mason.

Mike Isling - Barbershop

John Krieger - Tinsmith

Henry Schwindt Plumbing - his business was located on the 800 block of NE Dekum Street

Trupp Shoe Repair - Trupp Shoe Repair was located at 3619 N.E. Union and Beech (Southwest corner)   

Henry Werth - Tailor