Tuesday, July 17, 2012

U.S. Battleship Oregon

The USS Oregon was built in San Francisco and launched in 1893. I have delayed this post for a long time because I intended to go down to Tom McCall Waterfront Park here in Portland and take a photo of the mast, which is on display there as a memorial. Somehow I have never gotten around to doing it, but there's a perfectly good photo on Wikipedia anyway.

Here' s the card.


And here's the Wikipedia photo of the mast as it looks today.

Source: Wikipedia
The card was sent by D.A. Westcott of Victoria, B.C. to Miss Kate Goff of Waterford, Pennsylvania. The choice of a battleship postcard seems to be intentional. Here's the back of the card with its wonderful message.

Victoria, B.C. Canada
Kate - Take care of yourself. Don't let any body walk on you.
D.A. Westcott
May 23, 1908.


6 comments:

  1. It looks like they buried the battleship in the park.

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  2. The mast has kind of a space age look.

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  3. Rob may actually be right: The waterfront park is infill on what used to be docks and the natural riverbank, which is now defined by a concrete flood wall, the height of which correlates pretty closely to the deck level of that ship- might have been easier to bury the thing than dismantle it.

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  4. Rob, now that you've said this I will never look at it in the same way. I love the idea of an underground ship museum...

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  5. That is a nice thought for the day : Don't let anybody walk on you. Mind you, Amy walks on me all the time.

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  6. I'm pretty sure that's just the mast of the ship!
    I heard an anecdote once that the whole vessel was supposed to be preserved as a monument at some point, but it didn't happen for whatever reason.

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