The Largest Log Cabin Ever Built
As a kid growing up in northwest Portland we lived fairly close to the Forestry Center. Dubbed by the media as the “world’s largest log cabin,”. It was apparently the second largest, but that doesn’t make as good of a headline, does it?
It was built for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition of 1905. It was 206 feet long, 103 feet wide, and 72 feet high.
It was an amazing place. I remember my mother taking us there when we were small, and we would run all over the place. So many things to see, so many buttons to push.
When I started going to Chapman elementary school sometimes I’d stop there on my way home. Inside were exhibits and displays on logging. You pushed a button and the displays would come to life. It was all mechanical, and very crude compared to the kind of displays that are built now, but as a kid, it was so cool. I remember wandering around in there for hours. Thinking about it now, it must have been free (no admission) because as kids going in there by ourselves we never had any money, and if we did we’d be more likely to spend it on candy than on an admission. And we went there a lot.
According to an Oregonian report, the cabin boasted a “priceless collection of logging and lumbering exhibits, both antique and modern.”
At one end of the building, reaching up almost to the ceiling was a replica lookout tower, with stairs climbing up to the tiny cabin at the top. It was scary being up so high. As an adult, I wondered how high it really was. Now I have come across a bunch of photos of the place both inside and out and it was huge! Maybe even bigger than what I have imagined all these years later.
I can still see some of the exhibits in my head and as time goes by, I wonder how real my memories are. I think that is something we all think about as we age. Were these things we saw and experienced real. I have related things to friends and family members over the years and sometimes they will say they don’t remember that, or that didn’t happen. I know memory isn’t always true, but there are times when it’s so vivid that you believe it has to be.
On August 17, 1964 the Forestry Center caught fire.
In my mind, I can still see the flames rising above the trees from our front yard, and hearing the fire truck sirens coming from all over the city, attempting to save the structure. “The flames were almost ten stories high,”reported an eye-witness. “The fire illuminated the sky for miles, the neighborhood was an orange glow.
The windows on the entire south side of the Montgomery Ward Building (now Montgomery Park) were blown out. The heat was so intense that the windows were popping out.
Since the building was all made from old growth timber it burned fast and extremely hot. By the time the fire trucks arrived there was little they could do except watch it burn. It turned out that the fire had been started by some bad vintage-1905 electrical wiring.
I remember some of the neighbors were afraid the whole neighborhood might catch fire, but the fire fighters worked hard and no surrounding buildings were harmed to my knowledge.
For a couple years afterwards, all the remained was one giant log that was a display. It was far enough from the building that I believe it might have been scorched on one side, but it was left there for quite a few years afterward. I have no memory of that log being moved, it just seemed like one day it was gone.
We would walk through the lot where it once stood. Years later Condos were built on that site and they remain there today.
Looking through these old photos I can still feel the place. It was always cool, even in the summer. It was just a fun place for a kid to hang out. As we age, so much of the things we remember and loved disappear for different reasons.
And although I mine the past for my work, I chose not to live there. But I would love the opportunity to walk through the Forestry Center one more time.
There is more information and photos at https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/world-largest-log-cabin-portland/
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