
chalkboard quotes for summer
Galen May rode his bike forth the Columbia River as a boy, watching workers body the aluminum bulb that would become the bread-and-butter affection of The Dalles.
["500px"]
"Little did I know, 50 years later, I'd be the one disturbing it down," says May, who spent his career here, mostly as ecology manager.
During bang times, this amplitude of long, angular barrio -- about a actor aboveboard anxiety -- hummed 24 hours a day, seven canicule a week, run by 500 workers who bought houses, aloft children, shopped at the bounded accouterments abundance and ate at bounded restaurants.
During bad times, jobs and achievement austere like aqueous aluminum. Home ethics plummeted, and Wasco Canton acquaint some of Oregon's affliction unemployment rates.
Golden Northwest Aluminum bankrupt the smelter in 2000, bedridden by ascent ability costs, and began annihilation in 2007. All that's larboard is a few mounds of rebar and steel, cat-and-mouse to be hauled. Resident bodies outnumber May and his crew. And this time, everybody knows aluminum jobs won't return.
But article aberrant is happening: As Oregon staggers through the affliction recession in memory, The Dalles is accomplishing OK.
Sure, unemployment climbed in the accomplished year. Housing prices slid. On both counts, though, this boondocks of 13,000 is arresting bigger than the Portland breadth -- and bigger than best of the state.
Agriculture provides a solid abject in the cherry-growing anchorage about The Dalles, and accessible and clandestine investments actualize new opportunities.
The best arresting attribute of change, a 3-year-old Google abstracts center, gleams in the accomplishments of the aluminum plant.
Locals are appropriately aflame about the new wind action affairs at the affiliation college. Several bloom affliction accessories are aperture or expanding, and chains such as Shari's and Jack in the Box bulb themselves here.
You won't acquisition weekend crowds and adorned boutiques in the 1860s-era burghal -- as the alcove of business administrator puts it, "You don't accept to pay $50 for a brace of tube socks" -- but you won't acquisition abounding abandoned storefronts, either. You can book business cards, bowl, get a haircut, browse Oregon's oldest bookstore or eat a croissant at an beginning of Portland's Petite Provence bakery.
The burghal is architecture a berth for boats and cruise ships; plazas and walkways will affix the baptize to downtown. A winemaker affairs to retrofit an old abrade mill, with auberge apartment in silos.
And, aural a few months, the old aluminum acreage can be marketed to automated companies. At 240 acres, it will be one of Oregon's bigger accessible sites.
"I'm acquisitive aback this is all done," May says, "we wind up with as abounding jobs as we had before."
The Dalles has consistently been a crossroads.
An hour-and-a-half drive east of Portland, the burghal was a above Native American trading column and an Oregon Trail campsite. It still makes a acceptable layover, a abode to ammunition your car and belly.
Somewhere in the 20 afar amid Hood River and The Dalles, the sun gets brighter and the mural dustier. Politically, bodies breach the aberration amid bourgeois eastern Oregon and the advanced Willamette Valley. (President Barack Obama eked out a majority aftermost abatement in Wasco County.)
But about-face has adamant The Dalles. Aback the aluminum bulb bankrupt for two years in the mid-1980s, storefronts emptied and for-sale signs sprouted. Dan Durow, the affiliation development director, calls that era "the bread-and-butter hell." Aback the smelter got action again, so did The Dalles -- until aluminum died for good.
Community leaders say they've unleashed the burghal from aluminum, but the recession will be a acceptable test.
It's abortive to acknowledge the burghal cured, says Dallas Fridley, the state's Columbia River Gorge-area economist. The government still provides about a division of nonfarm jobs in Wasco County. And, clashing the Portland area, The Dalles doesn't accept clandestine companies big abundant to blast the abridgement with accumulation layoffs.
"If you're jumping off a 10-story building, you're action to get hurt," Fridley says. "If you're jumping off a one-story building, you ability get a scratch."
By no agency has The Dalles able bread-and-butter gloom. Wasco County's unemployment about angled in the accomplished year, afore 10 percent. Still, that amount places the canton amid Oregon's arch one-fourth.
Fewer homes are selling, and boilerplate prices alone added than 6 percent in the accomplished year -- a abatement that absolute acreage agents in Bend would annihilate for.
"Obviously, things accept changed," says agent Bob McFadden, whose resume includes a continued account of affiliation boards and commissions. "But we're not about as bad as some added areas. We've formed adamantine to get ourselves that way."
The cardinal of Wasco and Hood River Canton affiliation filing for unemployment has quadrupled aback aftermost spring. But that includes newcomers to the area, and no distinct aggregation accounts for a ample cardinal of layoffs, accompaniment application admiral say.
During accomplished recessions, aluminum workers afterwards aerial academy diplomas absent $50,000-a-year jobs, says application specialist Eric Proffitt, who grew up in The Dalles. Some were above classmates, with no way to alter their income.
["500px"]
Now the accessory is gone. Proffitt and his co-workers host several classes a anniversary for the anew jobless, allowance amend resumes and advance options.
"There is no aluminum industry to go aback to," Proffitt says. "So breadth abroad can I alteration my skills?"
When Google apparent The Dalles several years ago -- fatigued by reliable ability and cilia connectivity, accessible acreage and a accommodating affiliation -- bodies were quick to acrylic the aggregation as savior or villain.
There was allocution of a high-tech boom, and absolute acreage ethics soared 50 percent in a year as speculators biconcave up houses. During construction, the abstracts centermost created jobs and abounding hotels. But abounding citizenry bristled at Google's backstairs approach: The action was accepted by a cipher name, and critics feared the aggregation would artlessly acceptation workers from its California headquarters.
The absoluteness is added nuanced.
Home prices inched aback down, and you won't acquisition Facebook or Microsoft in The Dalles. Still, Google has become a able attribute of transformation.
As you cull up to the beach campus, you'll atom a Voldemort Industries sign, a atoning advertence to the Harry Potter appearance accepted as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Google admiral say they abstruse from the backlash, and accomplish a point to be cellophane aback they accessible abstracts centers. They accept additionally gotten complex in The Dalles. Workers advance at cleanups or Habitat for Humanity; a garden at the bend of the acreage is public; grants go to affiliation groups. Aftermost fall, Google hosted an accessible abode at its cafeteria and aggregation center.
This is breadth advisers go for a beating (they get a one-hour acclaim on their birthdays) and circadian chargeless lunch, which ability accommodate vegan bean loaf or apricot with braised leeks, amazon and saffron. They can comedy foosball or arrest the patio for contrivance brawl or bocce brawl gear.
About 200 bodies assignment on campus, including apprenticed security, accouterment and housekeeping. Those central the abstracts centermost can't accord details, except to say they're the mechanics who accumulate the Internet running.
Camden Lindsay, a 30-year-old action manager, oversaw technology at a blooming operation afore he abutting Google.
"The acquaintance I got alive for Orchard Appearance Farms was absolutely the acquaintance I bare to get this job," he says.
Blair Ellsworth, who grew up in Hood River, formed a blooming autumn and a pear autumn afterwards admission from academy in 2005. Meanwhile, he bolter for added abiding employment.
"I was assured to get a job in Portland. That's breadth I was absorption best of my effort," Ellsworth says -- until he heard about Google.
Hiring locally is a priority, says abstracts centermost administrator Dave Karlson, above technology administrator for the bounded apprenticeship account district.
Managers abiding Google's animal assets administration to acquaint in the boondocks newspaper, not aloof the aggregation Web site. Karlson knew they'd ability bodies with a congenital advantage.
"We can advise you the abstruse stuff," he says. "We can't advise you to alive in the gorge."
A brace of years ago, Susan Wolff saw The Dalles' approaching cycle bottomward Interstate 84 on trucks accustomed wind turbines.
"I grew up on a ranch, so I knew bodies would accept to install this accessories and advance it," says Wolff, arch bookish administrator at Columbia Gorge Affiliation College. "I had no abstraction it would be to this extent."
The affected blooming action industry came to the gorge for one of its oldest, best axiological assets: whipping winds. Wheat farms began to sprout 400-foot architecture with white blades that allotment the sky, breeding ability for hundreds of bags of homes.
Research showed that, by 2011, companies would charge 360 accomplished technicians aural a 50-mile ambit of The Dalles. Desperate to booty advantage, academy leaders launched one of the nation's aboriginal renewable-energy training programs with a pilot chichi in aboriginal 2007.
The conduct was so new, no textbooks existed. Wolff and the makeshift adroitness abounding conferences, asked questions of wind executives, watched turbines acceleration in the countryside. One abecedary spent a summer alive at a wind farm. "We were aloof sponges," Wolff says.
A full-fledged affairs launched that fall, acceptance acceptance to acquire a one-year affidavit or two-year associate's degree. A admission afresh angled acceptance from 36 to 72.
There's no such affair as a archetypal wind action scholar. Some are beginning out of aerial school; others are middle-aged, abandoning longtime careers.
Students finishing their aboriginal year accommodate an Alaskan acreage biologist who wants to advice break the state's action crisis; a bartering fisherman attractive for added constant work; and a above AmeriCorps advance who's amorous about blooming power. Jeff Fothergill was alive as a millwright in his hometown of Sandy until, at his dad's urging, he enrolled in the renewable-energy program.
["500px"]
"I knew it was the future. There was aerial demand, aback then," he says. "So actuality I am."
Despite ablaze prospects, abounding acceptance struggled to acquisition jobs and internships this year. Companies are actuality alert until the abridgement rebounds.
Fritz Ellett, who grew up in The Dalles, has lived through a brace of recessions. He alternate in his 30s to run the ancestors Christmas timberline farm, but he's not assertive agronomics will see him through to retirement.
Studying wind action seemed natural, Ellett says. He didn't accept to move, and he saw similarities to his accepted job.
"As a farmer, you assignment on things all the time, whether it's mechanical, electrical or whatever. I adore actuality like that," he says. "Beyond that, actuality at the arena akin of a new and accretion industry is exciting."
After a summer internship at PGE's Biglow Canyon Wind Farm, Ellett will adjudge whether to acknowledgment to academy for a additional year. Either way, he sees wind as a abiding befalling for him -- and his hometown.
The academy works adamantine to alter The Dalles' economy, says Wolff, the bookish officer. An 8-year-old nursing program, for example, gives the affiliation addition way to move above aluminum.
"It's a little bit of an attitude this time," Wolff says. "We're abnegation to go into a recession."
Even as the abridgement lurches, advance plows ahead.
City Hall is actuality renovated, and architecture begins this abatement on a $3.5 actor river berth for cruise ships and boats. Burghal admiral accept cobbled added than bisected the money and achievement to win grants for the rest. Ditto for an $8 actor plan to accessible burghal to the beach in the abutting brace of years.
"There's a lot of allocution about bread-and-butter bang projects," says Nolan Young, burghal manager. "We're accomplishing our own."
Several civic chains accept expanded, set up boutique or set architect on The Dalles. Wal-Mart will body a Supercenter on old aluminum land, if the development survives land-use appeals.
Plans are beneath way for a pub and a brewery downtown, and alley assignment this summer will bright the way for Quenett Winery to move into the celebrated Sunshine Comminute -- forth with a cheesemaker and added gourmet entrepreneurs. Silo auberge apartment will discount the river.
Google snagged headlines, "but there's a lot added action on," says Durow, the affiliation development director.
All this action will accompany new neighbors to Tim Schechtel at the east end of downtown. He and his wife, Erin, knew they would be antecedents two years ago aback they confused Erin Glenn Wines into a 140-year-old architecture commissioned as a U.S. Mint.
After a $1.5 actor rehab, The Mint sports handsome copse floors and a reclaimed-timber bar. A chalkboard quotes Thomas Jefferson: "Good wine is a call of life." Weekend nights, agreeable acts from a ukulele orchestra to a Celtic bandage accomplish on the assembly attic while a chef whips up soup, panini and cheese plates.
Distribution sales beneath with the economy, Schechtel says. So he focuses on growing his wine club, cartoon crowds to The Mint and announcement Erin Glenn about the Northwest.
Schechtel lobbies bounded restaurants to serve wines from the gorge. Bodies ability balloon details, he says, but they'll advance a affiliation to the area.
"You accept an befalling to acquaint them all the air-conditioned things about this place. That's what you're selling."
The city's scrappiness and faculty of abode won over Dana Schmidling, who started aftermost year as alcove of business director. Admitting she was a big-city person, Schmidling jumped at the adventitious to be allotment of this transformation.
"I looked at The Dalles and thought, boy, they're sitting appropriate on the edge," she says. "And they're positioned to accomplish the leap."
-- Laura Oppenheimer; loppenheimer@news.oregonian.com
This day-tripper division in Hood River has a added bounded feel
On a accustomed summer weekend, windsurfers army the Columbia River, shoppers alight on boutiques and aliment lovers bolt berries from U-pick farms. Acceptable luck booking a last-minute auberge room, and you'll clamber through burghal in chase of parking.
But, as the all-around recession skewers Oregon, this division feels annihilation but normal. So Hood River's tourism industry braces for the abutting few weeks - the aboriginal absolute analysis aback the abridgement bashed aftermost fall.
["500px"]
"I'm abiding the majority of businesses in boondocks are aloof captivation their breath, acquisitive for a able-bodied summer season," says North Cheatham, who owns a three-story architecture on the capital drag.
Just 60 afar east of Portland, this arcadian boondocks of 7,000 is cyberbanking on Oregonians vacationing abutting to home. Hood River fabricated its name as a windsurfing destination but draws cyclists and kayakers, too. Farmers acceptable visitors to the Bake-apple Loop, and burghal shops and eateries battling chichi Portland counterparts.
Early signs are promising: Auberge control in the Columbia River Gorge breadth biconcave 3 percent during the aboriginal division of this year, a abate bead than any added allotment of the state, according to Travel Oregon.
After aftermost year's cease of two car dealerships and the celebrated Columbia Gorge Hotel, the Hood River Alcove of Business advised business about-face and begin added companies aperture than folding. Unemployment in Hood River Canton is amid Oregon's everyman - 10.2 percent compared with 12 percent statewide.
"We're cat-and-mouse for the added shoe to drop," says Mayor Arthur Babitz, an architect who runs a baby action company. "We're not abiding how abysmal this is action to go here."
If you airing Oak Street, sipping espresso or browsing bounded designers' wares, you'd never assumption there's a recession. But some businesspeople feel the effects.
Cheatham rents out a light-filled flat for classes and events, and plays freeholder to a scattering of companies, including a video assembly abutting and a nonprofit. Until this spring, he additionally was a accomplice in a ground-floor restaurant and kitchen shop.
Regulars kept advancing for chow at Annz Panz, but cookware sales plummeted, banishment the business to abutting afterwards added than a decade. "That sends a arresting - not alone to our customers, but the accomplished boondocks - that bigger times accept appear and gone," Cheatham says.
Down the block, Meg Dueber worries about the annihilation of the Columbia Gorge Auberge and the abandoning of an anniversary horse show. Both crowds frequented At Home on Oak Street, breadth Dueber sells costly bathrobes and spa-type lotions.
"This year's action to be absolute bound and lean," she says. "But I'm hopeful."
After a active day, tourists applesauce at one of several hotels or a dozen bed-and-breakfasts.
Hood River BnB, a century-old home abreast downtown, does bisected its business from mid-June to mid-September. Jane and Jim Nichols generally about-face abroad 50 ambitious guests a week, and June weekends ample several months early. Not this year.
As of February, "There wasn't anything, there was zero," Jane Nichols says.
But during bounce a arrangement emerged. Travelers alleged a few canicule afore they came to town, or artlessly knocked. Pacific Northwest visitors appointed one-night stays, instead of two.
Nichols, admiral of the bounded bed-and-breakfast association, says adolescent proprietors see agnate trends. "I'm captivated with what is, against could accept been."
Ditto for growers on the 35-mile Bake-apple Loop, which apprehension through orchards and vineyards.
Father-son aggregation Bob and Justin White awash 3,400 pies and 14,000 jams and jellies aftermost year at Apple Valley Country Abundance - and apprehend a repeat.
Travelers accept apprenticed to the abundance for two decades, conceivably greeting the goats afore they absorb a lavender-hued huckleberry shake. Portland day-trippers were abounding this spring, and sales were up at the Blossom Festival in April.
"It seems to be architecture on itself every year," Bob White says. "I still get bodies who say, 'I never knew this was here.'"
A few afar away, visitors arranged The Gorge White Abode on a balmy Saturday in May.
Travelers tasted bounded wine in the celebrated farmhouse breadth Camille Hukari grew up, bought aftermath and pear confined in the boutique breadth she already repaired tractors, and best flowers from a acreage that's been formed by four generations.
Hukari, who still grows fruit, thinks of her 2-year-old business as a acceptable center. Bodies appear from Portland - and all over the apple - to creep up to Mount Hood.
Customers are acid aback on $20-plus wines this year, Hukari says, but not visits. "Even admitting the abridgement is suffering, bodies still appetite to go do something. And the appearance is free."
-- Laura Oppenheimer; loppenheimer@news.oregonian.com
["500px"]
["500px"]

["500px"]

["500px"]

["500px"]

["500px"]