Vintage shots from days gone by!

I'm gonna float like a butterfly and sting like a bee


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Building inspector Robert Lovelace pushes three boxes from the old city hall in Pasco to the new one in this May 27, 1955, photo. The new building, built at a cost of $245,000, was open for business on May 31, 1955.

 

In the chaotic days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy decided Pasco’s inexpensive land and good weather would make an ideal flight training base. It was built in 18 months and commissioned on July 11, 1942. Base personnel are shown at attention during a captain’s inspection in this Nov. 9, 1944, photo.

 

Drivers negotiating recent traffic jams can appreciate the delays motorists faced trying to get across the old green bridge when this photo was taken in 1949. The narrow, 2,113-foot-long span was just downstream from the cable bridge between Kennewick and Pasco. It was built in 1921 with 10,672 tons of concrete and 1,015 tons of steel at a cost of $480,000. The green bridge was finally demolished in 1990, after a nine-year court battle by advocates who wanted to preserve it as a historic structure.

 

Jennings Pioneer Hotel is shown in this Dec. 21, 1966, photo. Built in 1908-09, the hotel used to sit across from the Pasco train depot. The hotel was sold by Franklin County for back taxes in 1966.

 

Construction of a 50-ton pontoon bridge is seen in this Sept. 18, 1949, photo after a fire on Sept. 9 burned of the wood-floored bridge over the Snake River near Pasco. As soon as the pontoons were unloaded from trucks, troops of the 573rd Engineer Pontoon Bridge Company began fitting them together for the 909-foot span. Engineers considered the pontoon bridge better than a ferry for handling the heavy volume of traffic.

 

The post office in downtown Pasco.

 

Another not so good idea when it came to child car seats.

 

James Welch of Pasco had two hats, a mechanic’s cap and a volunteer firefighter’s helmet. Wearing a fire helmet in this Feb. 23, 1965, photo, he was assistant chief of a rural fire company that was stationed in the building Welch owned at 2900 E. Lewis St.

 

When Vice President Lyndon Johnson came to dedicate the Ice Harbor Dam on May 9, 1962, he had his motorcade stop in downtown Pasco so he could sign autographs.

 

The Town Hotel was the first home of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.
Pasco, WA.

 

Vice President Lyndon Johnson, in a light-colored raincoat, left his official car at Fourth Avenue and Lewis Street to greet crowds of Pasco residents in June 1962. Johnson was in the Tri-Cities to dedicate Ice Harbor Dam.

 

Pasco City Clerk Adah Perry points to a 10-year-old sign in this April 20, 1961, photo. Pasco had asked the state for new signs to reflect the city’s growth to 14,533.

 

Three generations were ready to take a load of asparagus to market in the spring of 1939 at the N.C. Nielsen farm, which stood at Vancouver Street and 19th Avenue in Kennewick. Shown are baby Sherryl Dimond, mother Ruth Nielsen Dimond and grandmother Olga Johnson Nielsen.

 

Downtown Kennewick, as shown in this picture taken in the 1960s, was the hub of Kennewick’s business. Shown is Kennewick Avenue, looking east.

 

Downtown Kennewick has gone through many changes since this picture was taken at the corner of Kennewick Avenue and North Cascade Street in 1953. The most recent efforts at revitalizing the neighborhood includes restoring some of the storefronts to how they looked back then.

 

Contributions of $100,000 and a bond issue for $500,000 helped finance construction of Kennewick General Hospital in 1952. The original building was designed for 45 beds.

 

On Friday, March 1, 1958, passersby were startled to see Old No. 1250, a then half-century-old coal-burning locomotive, near the Benton Street railroad crossing in Kennewick looking ready to start with a string of cars. The sturdy old “hog” was starting her last run - to the Northern Pacific’s dismantling shop in Auburn. She made the trip in the middle of a dieseldrawn train, firebox and boiler cold, deadheading to an inglorious end.

 

The first bookmobile to operate in Benton and Franklin counties was parked in front of the old Kennewick City Hall before its first run in the summer of 1949. The bookmobile also served as a vehicle to carry messages between neighboring farmers.

 

On Jan. 27, 1950, snow covered the streets in Kennewick. The day’s high temperature was 16 degrees. The low was 4 degrees.

 

Visger’s Drugs, 203 W. Kennewick Ave., shown in this undated photo, sports Kennewick’s first neon sign.

 

This Dec. 21, 1964, photo shows downtown Kennewick as city crews worked to clear Kennewick Avenue of snow by scraping it to the middle. In mid-block, it was piled 3 to 4 feet high and at intersections it was more than 8 feet high.

 

The poor condition of Kennewick’s streets was shown in this April 26, 1950, photo of Kennewick Avenue and Rainier Street.

 

Kennewick Fire Truck No. 1, shown April 19, 1950, during the parade celebrating the Tri-City Braves’ first baseball season.

 

The former Benton County PUD substation on Avenue C in Kennewick was to be torn down soon after this June 22, 1962, photo was published. The structure, built in 1926 by the Pacific Power and Light Co., sent power to Kennewick street lights and the area from Finley to the Richland Y. The load demand then was 500 kilowatts. The demand in 1962, served by four large substations, was 60,000 kilowatts annually. The building had not been used since 1950.

 

In 1919, travel by automobile between Kennewick and Spokane could get sticky. C.B. Quillen of Kennewick is shown beside his Dodge touring car waiting for a farmer with a horse to help pull him out of the mud.

 

Graves Auto Service at 15 N. Auburn received the Hudson automobile franchise in 1948. Shown in front of a new Hudson are, from left, Wayne McGuffin, salesman; Alfred Amon, Kennewick mayor; a Hudson representative; Bill Graves, owner; O.C. “Dutch” Lincoln, police chief; and Paul Pickett, salesman.

 

This is what Kennewick Avenue looked like this before a $148,000 reconstruction project was completed in July 1958. The photo of Kennewick Avenue, looking east toward Yelm Street, was taken before it was transformed into a four-lane boulevard with a center island.

 

Joseph Carroll (J.C.) Pratt came to Kennewick in 1906 and operated an auto repair garage at 11 N. Auburn St. and the InterCity Bus Line from the same location.

 

Rufus A. Oliver rides in the front seat of his 1913 circa Model T Ford, driven by his son, Clint. Rufus Oliver used the car to deliver mail in Kennewick. With him on the Sunday drive are his wife, Hanna, and his younger son Lewis.
(More like a 1924-1925)