After Tuesday’s article on Viewpoint Construction Software’s new building near OMSI, Portland General Electric wrote with some history of the building – known formally as the Hawthorne Building (it’s not on Hawthorne, but is more or less under the Hawthorne Bridge.)
The gallery above includes historic photos circa 1931. Here are some details on the building’s history:
• PGE s
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After Tuesday’s article on Viewpoint Construction Software’s new building near OMSI, Portland General Electric wrote with some history of the building – known formally as the Hawthorne Building (it’s not on Hawthorne, but is more or less under the Hawthorne Bridge.)
The gallery above includes historic photos circa 1931. Here are some details on the building’s history:
• PGE says the building actually went up in 1911, not 1909, as I’d reported, when the company was known as Portland Railway Light & Power.
• Wooden posts installed in the basement at construction were designed to hold down the floor in case the Willamette flooded nearby. (“A sump pump system was installed later but rarely used, with the exception of 1964 and 1996, when major Willamette River flooding occurred.”)
• The Hawthorne Building is just up the street from OMSI, which was originally PGE’s Station L, an oil and sawdust generator.