McMenamins

Music legend Etta James died today at the age of 73. The legacy she left behind in music is timeless and beautiful. But the memory she left with me is one of the highlights of my career.
 

Our 20-page seasonal newsletter was discontinued a couple years back - so we'll be periodically pulling old stories from this, as well as from the way-way back newsletter called Resonance of the Festival. First up, here's a story published in our Winter 2006 newsletter about our staff's favorite McMenamins artwork...

These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things...

We asked McMenamins staff and employees to name their favorite pieces of artwork within the Kingdom. Suggestions came pouring in from our pubs, breweries and hotels, so we could only include a very few of those picks here. Keep an eye out for these masterpieces and others the next time you visit your local McMenamins. Let us know what your favorite artwork is!

One hundred years ago, a special train traveled east from Portland, filled with passengers of remarkably diverse backgrounds, all bound for the same destination: the poor farm. They had been "rescued" from conditions deemed deplorable at Multnomah County's original poor farm, located where the Oregon Zoo is today. Now they were being placed in the just-completed, comparably plush accommodations of the county's new facility in Troutdale, accommodations that were in fact a far cry better than what could be found in most homes elsewhere in Troutdale at that time.

That's how the first residents of McMenamins Edgefield arrived in 1911. As mothers have warned us over the years, though, there were many ways one could end up at the poor farm. 

Our beloved red table wine is celebrating its 16th birthday this Wednesday, May 18 – and we're throwing a company-wide party, to which you're cordially invited!

But first, a little background.

This is pretty magical.

Back in the day (as in, 50 years ago), three talented men anchored the hoppin' downtown jazz scene, whose epicenter happened to be clubs that stood where the Crystal Hotel is today: Charlie Gabriel, Mel Brown and Carl Smith.

Each man eventually left Portland to make his way in the music world. All three went on to great success in the New Orleans and Motown scenes; all three left an enduring mark on Stumptown's musical history.

And now, each man is returning to their old stomping grounds -what is now the Crystal Hotel & Ballroom.

During the 1960s, Charlie Gabriel made a name for himself at the helm of the house band at the Desert Room, a nightclub on the very site of what is now the Crystal Hotel.

Now, forty years later, Gabriel is returning to his old stomping grounds, as a member of New Orleans' famous Preservation Hall Jazz Band, who take the stage at the Crystal Ballroom on Thursday, April 7.

Gabriel will return again for the grand three-day celebration of the opening of the Crystal Hotel. The jazzman will join the Mel Brown Band on May 3-5 in Al's Den, another historic venue located in the Hotel.

Gabriel's return isn't just a reunion; it's the bookend of a long and fascinating tale, a snapshot of history. Here's the story, courtesy of McMenamins historian Tim Hills:

Our McMenamins artists having been painting new historically based panels for the Crystal Hotel (opening in May 2011) for months now. Below, artist Lyle Hehn gives a slightly mysterious explanation of one of his latest pieces...

Tucked away in a corner of SW Portland, the Hillsdale Brewery & Public House is the birthplace of a VIP - er, make that a VIB. A Very Important Beer that goes by the name... HAMMERHEAD. Join us on Tuesday, January 25, at the Hillsdale and McMenamins' pubs across the land to celebrate this stalwart ale and the folks who love it. We'll have birthday pricing, food specials, Facebook giveaways and more.

It's no big secret that some of our joints are thought to be haunted. The White Eagle Saloon & Rock ‘n' Roll Hotel, for example, has long been included on lists of Portland's most haunted spots, while Edgefield in Troutdale, Ore., even made it onto a national list of "Top Ten Most Haunted Hotels"!

This painting is intended for the Zeus Cafe, which will be on the ground floor of the building made triangular by the intersections of Stark and Burnside Streets and Twelfth Avenue in Portland, Oregon.

In 2006 McMenamins moved their corporate headquarters to a former wedding chapel and mortuary in North Portland. Finally, in May of 2010, a new "McMenamins" sign has replaced the words "THE LITTLE CHAPEL OF THE CHIMES" above the door to the offices.

Miss Olevia Ireland arrived in Portland around 1909 and first worked as an actress. By 1913, she had given up the theater, taking a position as a dance instructor at Montrose Ringler's Dreamland Academy (located at SW 2nd and Morrison).

I was closing in on the grand finale of the Blue Cheer painting and having a lot of fun with the panel when we got a message from the management at Old St. Francis School hotel in Bend, Ore., that a painting in the lobby of the theater had been keyed, or vandalized.

Here are a few Irish toasts to get you started this afternoon (or maybe you're well on your way... or perhaps you've been properly jarred since Saturday...). Anyway, regardless your state of mind and body, read on:

Maxine Brooks Telephone Interview

February 24 and March 8, 1999

Maxine Brooks was born around 1912. In 1923, when she was about 11, Maxine started taking ballet lessons at the Hotel Elberton [now McMenamins Hotel Oregon] in McMinnville...

On Saturday, March 6, the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove, Ore., will celebrate its 88th Birthday Bash with live music, food and drink specials, kids' fun and, in its second year at this location, the Cracked Pots unGarden Art Show!

In the early 1970s, the reunion at Centralia of two talented friends fueled a wellspring of creative energy that resulted in intimate, unapologetic portrayals of two infamous Centralia subjects steeped in secrecy and intrigue-- the 1919 Armistice Day Tragedy and the Olympic Club.

Room 301 honors Joseph E. Penney, an iconic figure of early-day Portland, whose lifetime of peaks and valleys was the stuff of legend – so much so, Edgefield Distillery named a fine American Dry Gin after him.....

Welcome to the cyber catacombs of McMenamins history. It's a wondrous, multi-layered and lyrical realm brimming with life, from the day-to-day to the extraordinary.