Waldron Drugstore

Dan Haneckow, "Sunday, July 05, 2009: Vacation"

Cut off from the rest of downtown by the Union Pacific tracks and from the Columbia River by I-84, the Waldron Drugstore, built in 1867, leads a precarious existence in no man's land.

After the Flood of 1880, First Street, which the building faced, was raised twelve feet, making the entrance below street level. Over time, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's right of way built up, so that the first six or so feet of the buildings front is buried by 129 years of accumulated ballast. Historic importance aside (Walt Whitman once stayed there when it was a boarding house) with no easy road access its prospects appear dim.

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