Warrendale

Warrendale. “Titanic Frank’s” Columbia legacy. From the 1870s to the 1930s, the Columbia River was a lifeblood of a regional fishing and canning industry. The big, untamed river churned as fish wheels scooped millions of pounds of salmon smoke as laborers processed the fish and packed the cans that carried Columbia River salmon throughout the world., At the industry’s leading edge Portland entrepreneur Frank M. Warren (1848-1912), whose Warren Packing Company cannery was located here at Warrendale. At its peak, Warren’s company operated up to 14 fish wheels, about a thrid of the total number along the Columbia. The cannery employed as many as 150 people, most of them Scandinavians and Chinese., Captions , [inset photo 1]: After many years of harvesting on the Columbia, Warren realized the need to bolster salmon production. He was an early proponent of hatcheries to augment salmon runs. , [inset photo 2]: Fish wheel near Warren Packing Company cannery. , [inset photo 3]: Frank Warren's productive and influential life was cut short in 1912, when he drowned after helping others onto lifeboats during the sinking of the RMS Titanic. After Warren's death, his children managed the Warren Packing Company until it closed in the 1930s. , [inset photo 4]: The many buildings of the Warren Packing Company cannery are long gone. All that remains are rotting timber piling along "blood beach" - so named for the red sand, stained by the rusting scraps of millions of salmon cans. , [inset photo 5]: Immigrants provided much of the labor in the Columbia River canneries.