Northwest Portland in Multnomah County, Oregon — The American West (Northwest)
Working on The Railroad
Black Businesses in the North End
| — | The Golden West Hotel 1906–1931 | — |
Photographed by Ian Lefkowitz, June 25, 2026
1. Working on The Railroad: Black Businesses in the North End Marker
“I always worked two jobs. You ran on the road, you waited tables at the Portland Hotel, then in later years the race track opened and you worked at the racetrack…All of us did that. We had to do it to make ends meet.”
Otto Rutherford
There were two economic realities for Blacks in Portland at the turn of the 20th century. One was a severely restricted list of job opportunities. Men could find work on the railroads and at the Hotel Portland as cooks, waiters, porters, boot blacks and barbers or could hire themselves out as laborers. Women were employed as domestics in private homes or at Meier and Frank. But access to white collar and professional jobs was closed in Portland’s segregated society.
The second reality was an antidote for the bitter pill that was Jim Crow. The growing number of Black workers flocking to the rail yards needed basic services: lodging, restaurants, grocery stores, and barbershops, as well as spiritual support and entertainment. If Blacks were denied these services by whites, enterprising members of the Black community would have to supply them. W.D. Allen’s Golden West was the most important
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“The original location of the Black community in Portland was in close proximity to Union Station where much of the Black economic life and employment life was centered.”
Darrell Millner
A Sampler of Black Businesses, 1900–1930
1) Golden West Hotel, W.D. Allen; Waldo Bogle’s Hotel Barbershop; Richardson’s Café; A.G. Green’s Ice Cream and Confectionary
2) Lucy B. Lejeune Boarding House, 1884–1907
3) Arcadia Saloon, Burr Williams & S.S. St. Clair, 1899
4) Mt. Olivet Baptist Church
5) Bethel AME Church
6) Charles Jackson Lunch, 1902
7) Julius Severe, Saloon, 1902
8) J. Willis and J. Hedgpeth, Colored Cooks Waiters, Porters, and Janitors Club, 1904
9) Chandler & Ballard, The Club Café, 1905
10) Mrs. Emma Moore, “The Castle,” Rooming and Boarding House, 1902
11) Mrs. Emma Moore, Restaurant, 1902
12) Shepard Freeman, Restaurant, 1901
13) The Alpha, Furnished Rooms, 1906
14) J.C. Matthews Club for railroad men, 1919
15) Hyde & Rutherford’s Barbershop, 1906
16) J. Hedgpeth, Restaurant, 1913
17) Club Café Barbershop; Walter Becton, and S.S. Walker, soft drink parlor,1919Photographed by Ian Lefkowitz, June 25, 20262. Working on The Railroad: Black Businesses in the North End MarkerThe marker is found on NW Everett St, looking out to the Broadway intersection.
18) Rutherford Bros. Haberdashery, 1919
19) Mack Oliver, Grocer, 1919
20) Frankie Baker Shoeshine, 1930
21) Rutherford Bros. Barbershop, 1931
22) Walter Becton Barbershop, 1931
“Dad used to have his barbershop on the Broadway side and confectionary and haberdashery on the Flanders Street side. Down on Glisan there was a grocery store right across from the Post Office, a very busy little store. And then across the street from the Post Office on the Broadway side there was a shoemaker and he had that business for a long time. These were all Black businesses. Then of course you had your billiard parlor here and there, one across from the Post Office and one over on Sixth Street. Then they had — before Prohibition they had one or two saloons, too.”
Otto Rutherford
[Captions:]
Waiters posing in front of the dining car of the Northern Pacific’s Spokane-Portland-Seattle run c. 1915. William Rutherford (at far right), Otto Rutherford’s father, was recruited by the Hotel Portland from South Carolina in 1897 as a barber. For a time, he owned a group of businesses with his brother Edward, but he pulled out of the partnership
Photographed by Ian Lefkowitz, June 25, 2026
3. The Golden West Hotel
The series of markers are found in the window of the historic hotel site.
Hedspeth’s Restaurant was located at Flanders and Tenth Street near the North Park Blocks. NW Flanders Street seems to have been a primary east-west coordinate of the early Black business community between 1910–1930. The storefront next door to Hedspeth’s restaurant was a barbershop occupied at one time by Walter Becton’s Cafe Club Barbershop and by Hele and Rutherford’s Barbershop at another date. Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society
NW Sixth Avenue, c. 1912. Following the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition of 1905–06, Portland’s population skyrocketed. Along Broadway and Sixth Avenues, stretching from Union Station to Burnside, a new business and entertainment district sprang up serving tourists, traveling salesmen, and railroad workers. Residential hotels, as well as storefront restaurants, shoeshine parlors, barber shops, and pool rooms lined the busy streets. Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society
Rutherford Brothers Haberdashery NW Sixth and Flanders, 1910. William and Edward Rutherford were partners in several successful businesses, including a barbershop and a haberdashery, which served the resident African American community, railroad workers and travelers. They first owned property at the corner of Broadway and Flanders, later selling it for a quarter block on Sixth Avenue between Glisan and Flanders, close to Union Station. Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society
Topics.
Photographed by Ian Lefkowitz, June 25, 2026
4. Working on The Railroad (Left Panel Closeup)
Location. 45° 31.516′ N, 122° 40.668′ W. Marker is in Portland, Oregon, in Multnomah County. It is in Northwest Portland. It is on Northwest Everett Street west of Northwest Broadway, on the left when traveling east. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 709 NW Everett St, Portland OR 97209, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge and in the Willamette Valley. It is also on the American Pacific Coast, in the Pacific Northwest, and in the Lewis & Clark Corridor. Globally, it is in North America, on the Ring of Fire, on the Pacific Rim, in the Western Hemisphere, in the Western World, and in the Anglosphere.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker: The Color Line (a few steps from this marker); Golden West Hotel (a few steps from this marker); Minnesota Hotel (about 600 feet away, measured
Photographed by Ian Lefkowitz, June 25, 2026
5. Working on The Railroad (Right Panel Closeup)
Credits. This page was last revised on September 25, 2026. It was originally submitted on August 23, 2026, by Ian Lefkowitz of New York, New York. This page has been viewed 13 times since then. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. submitted on August 23, 2026, by Ian Lefkowitz of New York, New York. • Devry Becker Jones was the editor who published this page.
