Looking west on East Second Avenue. The sidewalk inscription, “1946,” is easy to overlook.
If you walk past 230 E. Second Avenue in Albany and look down, you might notice an inscription in the concrete. It means something to someone, but until last week I didn’t know what or to whom.
The inscription is that of a year, 1946.
Last Friday, longtime Portland broadcaster Mike Donahue died at age 77. He grew up in Albany and worked for KOIN-TV, Channel 6 in Portland, from 1968 until he retired in 2012.
In reporting his death, the station rebroadcast a story it had done with Mike just before his retirement 11 years ago. It showed him retracing his youth in Albany.
In one scene, Mike stops in front of 230 E. Second and points at the ground, seemingly delighted that 1946 is still there. It’s the year he was born and the year, he says, his father built his Studebaker dealership there.
Either his dad or someone at the dealership, Mike supposes, must have put that number in the concrete.
The father, W.C. Donahue, was the Albany Studebaker dealer. The city directory for 1941-42 shows the business, Donahue Motors, as being located a block away at First Avenue and Baker Street. By 1946, though, the address had changed to Second Avenue.
In 1952, the Albany weekly paper, Greater Oregon, carried a display ad that said:
Since Nov. 20, 1940, when Donahue Motors was founded, we have delivered
over 1,000 Studebakers to the people of Albany and the Willamette Valley.
Donahue Motors, 2nd at Montgomery
Your Studebaker Dealer Phone 1986
The business continued for almost another decade, selling Studebakers including the compact Lark.
But on April 25, 1961, the Albany Democrat-Herald printed this Donahue Motors ad: “We’re closing after 20 years as your Studebaker Dealer.”
In the news pages, the paper reported a week or two later that the building at 230 Second would be occupied by a new car business, J. Miller Chrysler and Plymouth.
What’s at that address now is Davis Glass, a family business founded in 1975. The company installs residential and commercial windows.
Like everything else in life, businesses on Second Avenue are subject to change over time. But an inscription in concrete lasts longer than most. (hh)
A closer look at the inscription at the front door of Davis Glass on Second Avenue.
William Crawford Donahue.
In the 1950 census, they lived at 332 E. 2nd which is now a parking lot.
His parents are interred at Twin Oaks Memorial Gardens
Thank you for this great little story. It warms my heart on a rainy Thursday. Mike, like you, considered the little details in his stories that make our lives a bit more interesting.
Well said, Kim.
i look at all sides of things. if someone did that on the new platform at the train station it would be destruction of property. and a trip to jail.
When you OWN the property you can scratch things in the concrete. If you don’t OWN the property, it’s vandalism or worse. Pretty simple if you were to think about it.
Oh get over it. My guess is that the guy had the sidewalk poured when he built his car store there, so no reasonable person would mind a commemorative inscription.
One block east is Snyders, specializing in front end alignment of autos . I’m told transportation related businesses have been operating at that location since before the invention of autos. It first started as a blacksmith location.
I love historic stories. Thanks for sharing.