Small Cities in Washington: Kelso

 

The weather forecast called for some dry days in late December (2025)! This was too good to miss, so I took a road trip south to the Columbia River. My first stop was the city of Kelso, which is on the east side of the Cowlitz River across from Longview. Here are some views around town. 

 

Central Kelso 

 

Downtown Kelso from Cowlitz Way (WA-4) bridge

(Kodak Ektar 100, Zeiss Ikon ZM camera, 50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens at ƒ/2.8) 

BNSF tracks under Cowlitz Way bridge (50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens)

The Cowlitz River flows between Kelso and Longview. After Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, an immense amount of mud and ash flushed down the Toutle Rivers and into the Cowlitz. Ultimately, about 65 million cubic yards of sediment was dumped into the lower Cowlitz and Columbia Rivers (from Robert I., Topinka, L, Swanson, D. (1990). "Eruptions of Mount St. Helens: Past, Present, and Future". U.S. Geological Survey Special Interest Publication).

 

Bingo at the FOE club, S. Pacific Avenue

Clock shop, 514 S. Pacific Avenue

300 1st Avenue (50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens)

407 N. Pacific Ave

103 Crawford Street (50mm Jupiter-8 lens)

406 1st Avenue (50mm Jupiter-8 lens)

North Kelso

 

Family Daily Store (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens)

Taqueria, 1009 N. Pacific Avenue (50mm Summicron lens)

Skeleton man on patrol duty, 305 N. Kelso Avenue 

620 M 3rd. Avenue

 S. River Road and S. Pacific Avenue

1400 S. Pacific Avenue

Mobile home off S. River Road

514 S. Pacific Avenue

Near the south end town, Douglas Street (50mm Summicron lens)

 

 

This ends a quick look at the City of Kelso. I was pleased to see many mid-20th century houses, many with Arts and Crafts architectural details. Some of the city look pretty good, but some of it is rough. 

I took these pictures on Kodak Ektar 100 film with a Zeiss Ikon ZM rangefinder camera and various lenses. Some frames were with my 1962 Soviet 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens. Stopped down to ƒ/4 or ƒ/5.6, it does remarkably well. On internet scale, of course, it is difficult to see if one lens is "better" or "sharper" than another. The Zeiss Ikon camera has a large, clear viewfinder and an amazingly accurate auto exposure function. 

Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, developed the film and scanned it with a Noritsu system. The Noritsu extracts impressive resolution from the negatives, and the files are clean. I assume there must be an infrared dust/scratch function that cleans blemishes. The Noritsu files have an odd warm tone, but I corrected them with the auto color function in Photoshop Elements 2024. (Note: Elements will let you crop, rotate, change color, and do some other adjustments on 16-bit TIFF files. But many functions require you to convert to 8-bit color, so Elements is limited if you want to retain your original 16-bit files.) 

This is a continuation of my irregular series on Washington towns and cities. I may expand the series to include Oregon cities.  

Autumn in Olympia (Oly 27)

 

It is spring of 2026 in Olympia, and an amazing profusion of flowers and leaves are bursting forth. What a spectacular display of nature. But wait, how did winter zip by so quickly? And what about autumn? I did wander around in November and December of 2025. Therefore, Dear Readers, this time I will impose on you some "pretty" pictures. Enjoy the colors and patterns. 

 

Olympia

  

Percival Landing, Nov. 11, 2025

Rail line under Interstate 5, off Henderson Park Lane, Nov. 15, 2025 

(Zeiss Ikon ZM, 21mm ƒ/4,5 Zeiss Biogon-C lens)

View SW towards tunnel under Capitol Blvd. SE (90 mm ƒ/4 Elmar-M lens)

Along the Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail (21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss Biogon-C lens)

Sunset from my balcony, East Bay Drive NE (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens)

Former Reliable Steel shed, West Bay Drive (21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss Biogon-C lens)

 

Tumwater

 

Capitol Blvd. SE (historic Route 99), view north (50mm Summicron lens) 

Former Olympia Beer brewery (50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens at ƒ/8)

 

The buildings that formerly housed the Olympia Beer ("It's the Water") brewery remain unused, an eyesore. The grounds are patrolled by a security guard. He and I wave to each other when I set up my tripod on the Capitol Blvd. bridge.

 

Seattle

 

Shed next to Connections Museum, Corson Avenue, Seattle

East Marginal Way South, view south (50mm Summicron lens)

In autumn, even East Marginal Way does not look too bad. Cancel that; it still looks very industrial and grungy.

I took these pictures with Kodak Ektar 100 film exposed at EI=80 using my Zeiss Ikon ZM camera with various lenses. The view of the Olympia brewery was with my 1962 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens from the Soviet Union. This is a Sonnar type of optic that is usually acclaimed as a portrait lens because of its pleasing signature. But stopped down to ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8, my copy does exceptionally well with distant subjects.  

Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, developed the film and scanned it with a Noritsu system. The Noritsu colors tend to look very warm, and I adjusted color with Photoshop Elements 2024.

 

Zeiss Ikon ZM rangefinder camera with 21mm ƒ/4.5 C-Biogon ZM lens

 

From the Archives: a Few from the Great Lakes

 

In a previous life, I regularly traveled to the states that adjoin Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Erie. I can't begin to count the trips to Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio to conduit surveys, attend conferences, and meet coworkers. Here are a few memories of those trips a long time ago (when you are as old as I am, many memories are of events a long long time ago....).

 

North Central Ohio  

 

I landed in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and rented a car. Heading north on W 220th Street, I came across a Chevrolet Corvair repair shop! It was owned by the legendary Jim Battenhouse (Dr. Corvair). What a treat to see some clean Corvairs again. Some of you old-timers may remember Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile by Ralph Nader. In the first chapter, Nader attacked the Corvair as a "one-car accident" because of its rear-engine, swing-axle suspension. Sales of the innovative Corvair plummeted, and, starting in 1964, the more traditional Ford Mustang totally outsold the Chevrolet product. (These photos: Fuji Super HQ 100 film, Olympus OM2S camera).

 

Green Derby, Rte 2, Benton Township, Ohio

I am unable to find this location. The restaurant probably closed years ago. 

Benton Harbor, Michigan

 

Wet departure from Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport, November 1993

Time for food, Benton Harbor

Roxy Hot Wings, 287 East Main Street, Benton Harbor

(Kodachrome film, Leica M3 camera, 50mm lens)   

One of my early projects was a sediment study at St. Joseph, Michigan, on the east shore of Lake Michigan. Benton Harbor, just across the St. Joseph River, was very rust belt back in the 1990s. I wish I had more time to explore. 

 

Friend and coworker, Mr. Charlie Johnson

(Kodak Gold 100 film, Canon Rebel camera) 

Charlie was known as Mr. Great Lakes. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of every harbor, every beach, the source of its sediment, and where it was going. He always willingly shared his expertise.

Presque Isle and Erie, Pennsylvania

Presque Isle is an arch-shaped sand peninsula that juts into Lake Erie near Erie, Pennsylvania, and encloses Presque Isle Bay. The peninsula is a state park and is forested, indicating its geologic stability for at least a few hundred years. The US Army Corps of Engineers built detached breakwaters and added beach fill along the west side of Presque Isle. The east side is open to Lake Erie and gives access to the waterfront and commercial harbor of Erie, Pennsylvania. One of the first civilian projects of the US Army Corps of Engineers was to build jetties and protect the entrance to Erie harbor, as authorized by the Rivers & Harbors Act of 1824 (yes, over 200 years ago). 

 

Erie Harbor north pier (September 1999)

 

The historic wrought iron and steel Presque Isle North Pier light was forged in France and assembled on the site in 1858. It was moved to different locations on the jetty in 1882 and 1940.  

  

 

Houseboats on Presque Isle Bay

Presque Isle is a stopover for migrating birds. One day, I met a ranger who was releasing some ducks that had entered a trap. He said the plan to check tags on the ducks was not providing new population data. The ducks learned that there was good food in the trap that did not require much work to enjoy. They entered the trap, waited for the kindly ranger to release them, and returned the next day for another easy lunch. 

Rats, raccoons, skunks, mice, and karate

Health food (exact location not recorded)

 (Fuji Super HQ 100 film, Olympus OM2S camera)

Melody Deli, 1402 East Lake Road, Erie

 

In the 1990s, Erie was a bit rough, an old time industrial city that had fallen on hard times. I do not know if it has revived in the last quarter century. In the 1990s, there were many interesting local business and stores throughout the city.

 

Toledo, Ohio 

 

My daughter and I explored Luna Pier and some of the shore along the very west end of Lake Erie. I was on my way to Cleveland to attend a conference, so she took me to Toledo to pick up the MegaBus. We looked at a map and saw that the stop was adjacent to Southwyck Mall. OK, no problem. But when we reached our destination, we saw that the mall was being actively squashed and demolished. One of the former stores was Montgomery Ward (also known as Monkey Ward). 

The MegaBus ride to Cleveland was efficient and quiet, but the company no longer serves Toledo. Why didn't I take the Amtrak?

 

Waiting for Monkey Ward to open, Southwyck Mall, July 20, 2009 

(Olympus E-330 digital file)

 

 

Cleveland, Ohio 

   

Wow, nice hotel room in Cleveland!

Cuyahoga River, Cleveland

This amazing railroad bascule bridge is the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Bridge 463 at the end of Sycamore Street. The railroad built it in 1957 when the Cuyahoga river was widened. There are no tracks leading to it any more, and the bridge remains as a monument to mid-century engineering. I am always impressed at some of the engineering and construction that the railroad companies accomplished in the 20th century. 

 

On the Waterfront, Cleveland

We had a reception at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the modern building on the left in the photo above. What a treat to have a private evening there. 

This ends a too-short tour of some Great Lakes towns. I have not been back to the Lakes for at least a decade. Time to return!

I took these pictures with various cameras and film types. I scanned the slides or negatives on a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED film scanner, operated by NikonScan 4.03 software running under Windows 7. The 2009 frames are from my Olympus E-330, a very competent 4/3 format (not micro 4/3) camera with excellent lenses.

The Grand Tour 08, Finale: Kodachrome Slides from Paris and London, 1950

 

After a quick tour of Geneva, my dad took an afternoon train to Paris. 

For Americans in the mid-century, Paris represented sophistication, art, vibrancy, and culture. Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, Oscar Wilde and other American expatriates (even Benjamin Franklin) had lived in Paris and written and created there. American troops helped liberate Paris in 1944 and were heroes at that time. Paris was a glamorous destination. 

 

Oh, oh, tourist photo alert. Every visitor to Paris takes pictures of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. But in these 1950 shots, there is very little traffic. But the good news is that on one Sunday every month, year-round, the Champs-Élysées is for pedestrians only.

View of Paris from the Arc de Triomphe, December 1, 1950

View of la Tour Eiffel and Fame riding Pegasus at Tuileries garden gates, December 1, 1950 

Île Saint-Louis and the Seine

Notre Dame de Paris, the world’s finest example of French Gothic architecture

The stonework looks reasonably clean in this photo. Possibly the government had already started cleaning and restoring monuments after the war. 

 

Galeries Lafayette Haussmann (historic shopping galleria)

The Hôtel de Ville in the 4th arrondissement

After a week in Paris (many days with rain), my dad took the metro to the Gare du Nord and entrained on The Golden Arrow (La Flèche d'Or) for Dover. In In Graham Greene's Travels With My Aunt, one of the characters uses the Golden Arrow to escape to Paris.

 

London

 

The Household Cavalry on the Strand

At the gates of Buckingham Palace

Back to USA 

 

After six cold days in London, my dad took the boat train to Southampton and boarded the Neiuw Amsterdam on December 12. This elegant ship was built in 1938 and had served valiantly as a troopship from 1940 to 1946. He wrote that several days were rough (it was December on the North Atlantic!). My dad's last diary entry is December 17. He probably landed in Hoboken, New Jersey, a day or two later. 

I do not know why my dad took a sea voyage rather than fly to USA. The early-1950s were the peak of the post-war tourist boom for Atlantic ocean liners. In that era, ship travel was sophisticated and glamorous. But it would not last. The inauguration of Pan American's Boeing 707 jet service across the Atlantic in October 1958 spelled the eventual doom to ocean liner service. Impatient tourists wanted to cross the ocean quickly. (And you all know what a grotesque experience air travel is today, especially in economy class.)

This ended the Grand Tour from Guam to USA. My dad was energetic - I can barely imagine covering three continents and dealing with that many tourist sights, odd foods, hotels, customs clearances, and bureaucratic issues in two months. 

For funds back then, my dad and most tourists carried travelers cheques, which they exchanged into local currency. I used travelers cheques up to about 2000, some even denominated in French Francs and Deutsche Marks. But the almost universal use of credit cards largely eliminated the need for paper cheques. My dad also picked up extra cash at American Express offices, but I do not know how the transaction worked. He also picked up mail at American Express offices, which would hold letters for a traveler.   

My dad did not linger in USA. After two or three weeks, he was offered a job in Athens, Greece. He packed his bags, bought Kodachrome film, and left for Athens on Pan American World Airlines. 

 

Nieuw Amsterdam

 

Nieuw Amsterdam in 1949 after complete post-war refitting

Source: 

Collectie / Archief: Fotocollectie Anefo
Beschrijving:Vertrek Nieuw Amsterdam uit Hoek van Holland
Datum: 1949-05-31
Locatie: Hoek van Holland
Nieuw Amsterdam Fotograaf: Bilsen, Joop van / Anefo

 Photo Notes

 

This is the Leica IIIC camera and 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens that my dad used on his long trip. This Summitar is coated and has 10 aperture blades. The coating is still intact, unlike many Summitars that were scratched over the decades. 

My dad used the 1940s Kodachrome film in 35mm size. In 1945, the film speed was Weston 8 or G.E. 12. By 1953, Kodak listed the exposure index as American Standards Association (ASA) 10. At that time, Kodak sold their Kodachrome film with a processing mailer. My dad would have mailed his trip films to a Kodak laboratory (probably in Rochester) when he returned to the USA.

 

Page 42 from Kodak Data Book 5th Edition

Kodachrome Films for Minature and Movie Cameras

Gawainweaver.com prepared a comprehensive summary of Kodachrome mounts and timeline.