UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD NORTHWEST EMPIRE 1950s OREGON & WASHINGTON STATE PORTLAND TACOMA MD67714

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Published 2020-06-23
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The Union Pacific Railroad sponsored this 1952 travelogue, Northwest Empire, to promote travel to and around the states of Oregon and Washington. The film highlights the places to visit as well as some of the region’s industries. The film begins with a shot of the waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing into the shoreline, streams, wheat fields, and vistas of mountains and harbors. The Union Pacific travels along the Columbia River (02:15), making its way to the city of Portland (03:08). The Willamette River runs through the middle of Portland; an aerial view shows Portland’s Union Station as well as more of the city. The Annual Rose Festival Parade takes place in Portland, featuring the Queen of Roses, marching bands, and various floats (04:22). The passenger Streamliner leaves Portland and heads east for Chicago, passing Multnomah Falls (05:13) on its way. The line also goes up along Puget Sound (05:59), passing Tacoma with Mount Rainier in the background (06:10). The film shows the city of Seattle (06:23), Seattle’s Union station, and the harbor (07:17), where products are loaded onto freight ships while fish are unloaded. Cars drive over the floating bridge on Lake Washington (08:00), which is a popular place of recreation, where people water ski and race speed boats (08:32). A passenger liner leaves Seattle’s harbor (09:19). The film then looks at some of the industries, including the energy industry, powered by the region’s many dams, including The Dalles Dam (09:37), Grand Coulee Dam (10:01), and the Bonneville Dam (10:34). Viewers are shown an aluminum plant (11:12) and the Tillamook cheese factory (11:53). The timber industry is one of the biggest in the Cascades. Men log the large cedar and Douglas-fir forests. A crane lowers logs onto a trailer (13:18); logs are milled with a band saw (14:00). There is an aerial shot of a lumber mill (14:27) and footage of a pulp mill making various types of paper. Oregon and Washington are also the home of many of the nation’s apple orchards (15:44) and berry patches. The film shows other agricultural mainstays, including wheat (16:32) with a particularly pretty shot of a wheat field with Mount Hood in the background. There are many famous mountains in the Cascade Range, such as Mount Adams (17:19) and Mount St. Helens (17:28). Tipsoo Lake is nestled at the foot of Mt. Rainier (17:49); the film treats viewers to panoramic shots of Crater Lake National Park (18:20) and Olympic National Park (19:17). A ferry boat services the San Juan Islands. A man digs for horse clams. A fishing boat goes out for commercial salmon fishing; two men pull in the pilot net and soon chinook salmon are brought aboard the fishing boat. Celilo Falls (21:50) was a cherished place for the Native Americans and people frequented the falls for dipnet fishing until it was flooded with the construction of the Dalles Dam. The Pendleton Roundup parade (23:09) in Pendleton, OR, celebrates the Native American and Pioneer heritage of the town; the festival is complete with a large rodeo. The film then shows some of the wildlife that call the region home: a trumpeter swan (24:31), sandhill cranes, cormorants, a baby blue heron, and a family of pelicans. A baby antelope lays motionless waiting for its mother (25:48); adult antelope race across the plains. The film ends with shots of Ecola Point (26:39), the Oregon Coast Highway (27:10) and the Heceta Head Lighthouse (27:36), clam diggers looking for razor clams (28:05), sea lions diving from a rock into the sea (28:28), whales breaching the ocean’s surface (29:09), and shots of waves crashing into the rocky shoreline of the Northwest coast.

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All Comments (21)
  • @steverudder3321
    The best times in my life growing up in Washington were spent picking and enjoying the freshest produce! Like apples🍎🍏, raspberries, Bing and Rainier cherries 🍒, green beans, huckleberries, boysen berries and hazelnuts. Most of which could be found growing wild!😋❤
  • @Chad_Lawrence
    Fun drinking game: take a sip every time the narrator says Oregone. Bonus swig at 27:28 guzzle after Hegeta Head.
  • @milesm.69
    17:30 "-Mt. St. Helens displaying ancient lava flows from the adolescent period of the northwest..." Fast-forward 30 years and those lava flows won't be ancient!
  • @milehighkit4725
    What a gem! Thank you for digging up these priceless classics :-)
  • @mackpines
    3:10 Portland looks so small back in the 50's. Now, there's expensive apartment buildings going up everywhere. Back then, the Pearl District was just railyards.
  • @bloqk16
    Ah! Yes! Tillamook Cheese @11:46. Some of my earliest childhood memories was from a family visit to that processing facility in the 1950s. I recall being a cool, damp, overcast morning; with a long outdoor conveyor belt of milk cans being moved from trucks into the building. I vividly recall the processing vats of stirring milk with the stench emanating from the process; very unappetizing. I guess sanitation wasn't much of an issue back then, as the touring visitors could walk by those open vats just several feet away. At the end of the tour the visitors could sample the various cheeses Tillamook offered. I recall various styles of cheeses were displayed in a glass case identical to what you'd see at grocers' meat market section; where Tillamook employees, dressed like meat market butchers, would access the cheeses of the visitors' choosings; slicing the samples for the visitors to taste.
  • @robertthayer5779
    Before Amtrak. When passenger trains were something to enjoy. Now it's not much more than a slightly safer bus.
  • @mitchdakelman4470
    Union Pacific had their own in-house film production department and their productions, like this, were all first rate! Gee, maybe I can find a film copy of this someday.
  • @oubrioko
    17:38 Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake looked very different 30 years later
  • @larryjex6485
    Great film, but this makes me sad when I look at what Portland has become over the last few years.
  • @markh.1487
    "Northwest cheeses are famed for their variety, taste and goodness." Goodness??
  • @vancepomerening4794
    6:22 ERROR, UP never ran a thru Chicago to Seattle train. Service between Portland and Seattle was provided by the Pool Trains with the GN and the NP.