288 DAYSSan Francisco · 1915
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Oregon Building

'A Parthenon with the bark on': 48 unpeeled Douglas-fir logs, one for each state, standing in for the marble columns of Athens.

The Oregon Building's colonnade of fir logs, postcard
The Oregon Building's colonnade of fir logs, postcardUnknown publisher, 1915, public domain

Oregon built a Parthenon out of its forests. The architects, Foulkes and Hogue of San Francisco and Portland, relied on the tradition that the first Parthenon had been built of wood long before Pericles. Their colonnade was 48 Douglas-fir logs with the bark on, one for each state in the Union, each five to six and a half feet thick, 42 feet high and weighing about 20 tons. The building stood on a platform about 150 by 250 feet. At its Halloween housewarming in 1914, according to the Official Guide, committees from the state societies each took formal possession of a column.

Inside were fruit, grain and dairy exhibits, strawberries growing, a picture theater, and an all-Oregon art room paneled in cedar, with furniture of myrtlewood. Students of the Oregon College of Agriculture ran a café. North of the building an aviary 150 feet long and fish pools modeled on reaches of the Columbia River ran toward the bay. Nearby rose the Astoria flagpole, a single tree 214 feet above the ground, floated down the coast to the fair.

It was a Parthenon with the bark on; for it is architectural tradition that long before the age of Pericles, the original Parthenon was a wooden structure...

Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. III (1921), p. 331

At a glance

  • 48 Douglas-fir log columns, 5 to 6.5 ft thick, 42 ft high, about 20 tons each (Todd); 'more than four feet in diameter... one for each state' (Official Guide).
  • Platform about 150 by 250 ft.
  • Cost about $72,000 including exhibit booths; state appropriation $175,000.
  • Astoria flagpole: 214 ft above grade (222 ft overall, 8 ft set in concrete), topped by a 10-ft gilded star.
  • Dedication dates conflict: March 1, 1915 (Todd ch. LVIII), April 30 (Todd ch. LXI), or a Halloween party in 1914 (Official Guide).

Afterward

Presented to the Government by the Oregon Commissioners and kept in the Presidio as a clubhouse for enlisted men (Todd V, pp. 247, 254); later demolished (date unverified). The site is now Presidio/Marina shoreline land.

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