Photograph of the Powell car barn from an advertisement in the December 31, 1909 “Oregon Daily Journal.”

One of the earliest electric power houses, constructed to provide motive power for the Waverly-Woodstock and Waverly-Richmond lines as well as storage for the line’s handsome Pullman electric cars. By 1900, the barn was in poor shape, and was clearly disused by 1903. However, the structure remained in place until at least September 24, 1910 it is noted as a polling place for that date’s Multnomah County primary elections.

The dynamos here were moved to the Inman-Poulsen Power House in 1892 — less than two years after they were installed — as the streetcar companies consolidated power generation into fewer, but larger plants.

A 1901 Sanborn map accurately locates the barn on the southeast corner of the Powell and 26th intersection, to the south of the main line which ran east-south-east here. The tracks from the main line entered the barn from the eastern side, directly to the second-story, with the generating equipment in the floor below, the whole building being in a substantial gulch.

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