Sandy post., May 28, 1981, Page 31, Image 31

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The B eaver w as
to be G re sh a m 's
c h a lle n g e in cars
SERVICE
CENTERS
W zÄdsl a C=3 © Q=D
by SH \IU>N NESBIT
of The Outlook staff
For a while, (¡resham really thought it was gomg to give
Detroit a run for its money
Gresham residents dreamed of thumbing their noses at
Henry Ford every time they saw P A. Combs drive up to the
c ity ’s brand new automobile manufacturing plant in his
gleaming Beaver 6 car
Yessir. Gresham was going to build automobiles .lust as
soon as the six-cylinder Beaver was off the line, by golly, the
world would see a four cylinder Beaver that would make
Henry Ford and his Model T sit up and take notice
But a number of things got in the way of that dream
World War I. for instance. Today, all that is left is a building
near Northwest Division Street in (¡resham and a fading
brochure which offered a home grown auto.
" I t is a long way across the mountains to where cars are
now being made." the brochure declared in 1914
It still is a long way to Detroit — so far that Detroit pro­
bably never knew its existence was threatened by Gresham,
Oregon.
Automobile enthusiast Dan Larroweof Corbett researched
the Beaver 10 years ago His findings, coupled with material
from the Oregon Historical Society and news stories from
early day Outlooks, tell the story
The Beaver State Motor Company’s automobile plant was
completed in March. 1914, a 204 foot long factory of reinforc­
ed concrete with brick curtain walls costing in the
neighborhood of $7,500. The building is still used by Olympic
Manufacturing Co Jim M Vaughan, general manager of the
veneer plant, says it is a constant headache replacing glass
in the huge windows of the original structure
Just two months after the plant was built. Beaver State
president P A. Combs announced the factory would be com
pleted in time to put seven automobiles in the Portland Bose
Parade line-up Material for 500 machines was on hand, he
said, and it was already apparent that the new structure
would be inadequate
Experts forecast that 500 men would be working in the new
plant by 1916
But the dream started to go sour. Because of war shor­
tages. it was difficult to get parts like the Daimler-
Lanchester worm drive gears from England The firm aban­
doned plans for a large car and began to repattern to meet
public demand for a smaller vehicle
But optimism was still high In 1915 when the executive of­
fices were moved to Gresham a Portland paper bragged,
"Beaver sixes. . . w ill become an everyday spectacle on
Portland’s streets within the next 90 days."
That spring saw six employees casting four and six-
cylinder engines in a foundry which was once the woodshed
of Gresham pioneer Dr John Parker
"A continuous hum of industry will be heard at the Beaver
factory from now on," the Outlook editor prophesied But this
time H L. St Clair was wrong and it would cost him
Members of his family say the editor, like many other local
residents, had invested in the new motor firm
After a long summer of silence on the subject, St. Clair
reported that the factory had turned to other profitable work,
the building of drag saws, while waiting for conditions to
change in favor of the manufacture of cars
In January. 1916, he wrote a near desperate story reasser­
ting his faith that the plant would, indeed, build automobiles
"Listen here.” he said and then pointed out all the prominent
and monied people who had bought stock in the firm
Hope continued to flicker for two more years but an April,
1918 story reported there were 40 men at work in the plant
making nothing but saws.
In 1970. Larrowe learned from former Beaver State
employee Charles Haney, now dead, that part of the firm 's
problem was a law suit by the Overland Car Co over in fr­
ingement of engine patent rights
It was Haney’s recollcfion that only one Beaver, "a very
good ca r," was ever built. But there the stories diverge
Oregon Journal accounts tell of a car that sat on blocks in the
Beaver plant awaiting results of litigation
"M y brother and I cast covetous eyes on it and our father
<a lawyer) bought it for us," says Ralph Coan, 67-year old
Portland realtor
Coan recalls he was about 13 at the time and he and his
brother drove the Beaver until the tires gave out Tired of
looking at the useless vehicle. Coan’s father shoved the
chassis (the motor had been taken out > into a giant bonfire in
the fall of 1929
"The chassis was alumimm There was almost nothing
left." Coan recalls.
______
The punchline to the story is that a month later a represen
tative of Harvey Firestone approached the elder Coan offer­
ing $5,000 for the automobile known as the Beaver
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