Lost and found

Lost and Found is the occasional post that aggregates Oregon-specific news related to Lost Oregon including buildings, architecture, demolitions, preservation attempts and other anecdotes published elsewhere from Oregon’s roadside.


Rexall on Main in Milwaukie in 1955.

And in 2008:

Lost: Oney’s Restaurant on Highway 26 burned to the ground – and investigators think it’s arson.

Found: The soda fountain in the old Rexall/Perry Pharmacy on Main Street in Milwaukie [which also houses an antique mall] has reopened. Be sure to try their delicious Lime Rickey. According to a placard there, JFK swung by during a 1960 visit.

Lost AND Found: AAAPDX didn’t disappear it merely changed its name to the MCM League and added all kinds of cool stuff to their site. Check out the forums, especially the Historical Archaeology of Portland section where they show off some wicked awesome now and then photo skills. I’ve mentioned this before but will mention again: support these folks. They truly care about the character and history of Portland.

8 thoughts on “Lost and found”

  1. My husband and I found about the Main Street Rexall last winter while running our McLoughlin thrift store “gauntlet”. The gray cracked ice Formica and original fixtures are really amazing! They had just taken over the business and could not yet sell food, but I will have to revisit this place now that they have it up and running. Thanks for giving the mcmleague another plug…we really appreciate it!

  2. Love this kind of thing…I miss the old pharmacies on every other corner (well, that’s an exaggeration. Every main neighborhood had one…mine was Sellwood or Westmoreland. They kind of disintigrated in the 70s).

  3. There was even a competing (smaller) pharmacy right across Main from Perry’s. It also had a soda fountain. I cannot remember its name. The building remains, occupied by some part of Dark Horse.

    In the sixties, at the phone pole visible to the right was a taxi stand. A a “ring-down” phone (no dial, no coins, in a small cabinet) was mounted on the pole for summoning a cab, should there happen to not be one waiting.

    Beyond the cab stand was the stop for Intercity Bus Lines (the “blue buses”), with the stop going the other direction across Main on Monroe beside the bank (First State Bank of Milwaukie, later First State Bank of Oregon).

  4. Thanks for highlighting the Main Street Soda Fountain, we are doing great, have a small menu with a lunch special and almost all the old fashioned soda drinks and ice cream specials. A neat old building really like walking back into time, a little store time has forgotten abount except for reminders on sights like yours! Thanks Again! Darlene and Christine At Main Street

  5. McQueen’s was actually called the “Lost and Found” sometime back (12 to ? years ago), after a number of years as a Mexican or Chinese restaurant (I forget).

    The site was a (Chevron?) service station in the 1960s, as also was the existing convenience store to the N across the street (Al’s Shell).

    For the “Lost” category, I submit the Oak Grove Diner, which closed sometime before 1960 and disappeared before 1962. It stood a ways back/down from McLoughlin, roughly across from the fire station, or about where the Teacher’s Credit Union is today.

    http://www.agilitynut.com/diners/lost.html

  7. When I was a teenager–in the mid-1970s–I worked as a “stock boy” at The Perry Pharmacy. The soda fountain was a wonderful place, so I’m glad to see that it’s re-opened.

    The pharmacy and adjacent grocery store were really a bit of disappearing history. The Perry Pharmacy carried their own accounts (using a very old-fashioned, 3-sheet machines); customers were not required to provide any identification, but simply told the clerk their name and signed for the merchandise. Also, I recall occasionally making deliveries using Ray’s (the pharmacist that started there mid-century) 1965-ish Chevrolet–I thought that this was a grand adventure each time.

    The tiny grocery store next door was connected by some sort of open doorway. The elderly man that ran that place (Red was his name, I think) was a real character. The grocery store looked like it was right out of the 1930s.

    Next time I’m in Portland, my family and I will stop by to look around and enjoy a milkshake.

  8. Recollections of Milwaukie:
    -Milwaukie JR HS 1955-1957
    -Milwaukie HS 1957-1961
    -Friday night football games
    -the DQ, poolhall, Victoria Threatre, Perry’s Pharmacy, 3 or 4 barbershops where we had our flattops crafted, diving off of the highrocks and running the rapids on the Clackamas in an air matress, 55-57 chevies (dreamed about ’em, but never had one)
    -Climbs of Hood, jefferson, Adams, St. Helens & the Three Sisters
    -Competing in amateur rodeo in Oregon, Idaho, Utah & Wyoming & getting there by thumb, friends’ broken down heaps, and rail (freight trains from Portland outbound and back along the line that ran through Hood River, Boardman, Pendleton, etc.)
    -Return from the east coast on occasion for business and mountaineering in Oregon & Washington

    Good to find your site-

    Ken LeDoux

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