Memories of The Riverview Market in Riverview, Oregon

In Lane County, Oregon between Eugene and Junction City, there is an unincorporated area on Old River Road known to locals as "Riverview".   Presently, it is not much more than a crossroad, some farms and homes, a church, an old abandoned building and a little store for sale.  There used to be a school nearby of the same name that was part of the Junction City School District #69.  Not far down the road towards Eugene is the Shadow Hills Country Club.

"Some Background History of Riverview"

Source:  U of O Libraries Digital Collection

In 1847, Lester Hulin, Sr. came across the Oregon Trail from St. Louis, Missouri, taking the southern route known as The Applegate trail.  Around 1850, Mr. Hulin secured a donation land claim a few miles from the Junction City area near the Willamette River, which became known as the Riverview District.  Lester married Abbie J. Craig on December 1, 1953, and they had four children: Charles, Anna, Samuel and Lester, if you want to further check them out.  Lester Hulin wrote and illustrated a book, called Lester Hulin: Applegate trail to Oregon, 1847

One of Hulin's first successful crops as a farmer was a crop of potatoes, and it seems as if he raised grain later on.  Lester kept the farm running even after he moved to Eugene in 1881.  As more folks settled in the area, farming the rich soil in the surrounding are became more prevalent.  Flooding during the rainy season was a problem, but they must have managed to deal with that.

So far, any information on Riverview has been hard to come by on the internet.  I did find a report that includes some interesting tidbits  written by the Junction City Teachers, though I cannot figure out when they wrote it.  I copied the photos of the church and school below from that article.  Here is the link to the long 36 page report if you would like to read the whole thing:  "Junction City History and Resources".

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Riverview sported a church, the land donated by The Hulin Family:

Source:  Junction City History and Resources

This church has since burned down, but there is another one in it's place. When the original was built, the congregation shared a minister with a Methodist church in Junction City before they got their own.

There were also a couple of schools, one replacing the other:

Source:  Junction City History and Resources

Currently, there is no longer a Riverview school in operation.

I also found a great deal of information about River Road on The Eugene Planning and Development Department's website, which you can get to by "CLICKING HERE".  That is where I found the cow picture below.  The photo was taken at a gas station on River Road during the January 1946 flood.

Source:  Lane County Historical Society ~ Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

 
Perhaps the photo above is of The Riverview Market, but it could be of some other store.  I am going to pretend that it is,  just for the sake of the following story.  I have a special interest in The Riverview Market (now known as Katie's Market).  It was built in 1930 at the intersection of River Road and Riverview Street, across from the Methodist Church:

The Riverview Market aka: Katie's Market

"The Traylors"

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Grandpa T. holding Bobbles, and Grandma T. holding me.

From 1958 until 1970, my maternal grandparents, Floyd and Florence (Hedrick) Traylor owned and operated the little country store and gas station named The Riverview Market.  Grandma sold the store when Grandpa died of a heart attack in his log truck near Oakridge, when I was twelve.

I have so many memories of spending time there, and have been thinking about the store frequently over the past couple of years.  (I even had a dream about it last year; two women with blond hair were living in it, in my dream.)  When Jo Brew wrote and asked me what I knew about HWY 99 for the book that she is writing, I decided that now was the right time to write this post. Believe it or not, in this family of prolific picture takers, we cannot find photos of the store when they were living there.  I know that there must be some out there someplace.  If you have any to add, please email them to me so that I can put them on here.  Thanks!

The Traylors were nicknamed "The Tators" by us kids.  It must have been easier to say when we were little or something.  After my brother and cousin figured out that a tator was also a spud, that became my Grandpa's own special nickname.  I'm sure that he was thrilled.  He probably was.  He loved us so much.

Grandpa T. was a log truck driver, and Grandma T. stayed home, minded the store, and worked in their beautiful yard.  The yard had a big walnut tree with a swing hanging from a main branch for us grandkids to play on.  We helped her pick up the walnuts from the grass, and she dried them on the floor of the small storage room that housed the switch to turn on the gas pumps.  The dining room table sat in front of a larger window than is now there, facing the patio and the yard.  Grandma had flowers and shrubs planted all along the border of the green grass, and everything was so pretty.

This is how the yard looks now (or in 2008).  The tree is gone.  The brick pillars were not there before, and the sign was on the front of the building.  My grandparents had a little apartment in the back of the store.  It encompassed a living area, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom.  The kitchen, bedroom and bath were to the right of the door that you see in the photo below.  The living room and dining area were on the left.  The store was on the blank wall below, after the end of the living room on the left.  Apparently, the downstairs is the store and food prep area, and the upstairs is a living area loft now.  There are photos of the current layout at the end of this post, but not of the loft.

The Tators had a dog named Boobie, who had only one eye and was otherwise rather unattractive, though a good all-around dog.  Boobie (nicknamed Old Boob) would almost always get to go along for rides in the car.  The car was was almost always a Buick station wagon.  One time Boobie was inadvertently left at a bathroom stop on a Sunday drive, and by the time they figured it out, it took awhile to turn around and retrieve him.  Boobie was patiently waiting where they left him, but really what was his alternative?  At least he didn't panic and flee.  If there was an occasion where Boobie had to stay home, he would become super-miffed, and not even look at Grandma and Grandpa for several hours after they returned.  I suppose that even old boobs have the right to feel neglected.

Upstairs, there was one huge room that they had once used for their bedroom and home storage.  Grandma always used to cover her water glass with a tissue when they were sleeping up there, for fear of swallowing a spider in the middle of the night.  I loved staying upstairs when I was older, sleeping in the double bed by the window, and going through all of the old books and other things that were tucked around here and there.  I adopted the tried and true old tissue-on-the-glass trick myself; and am now wondering why I wasn't more afraid of the spiders joining me in bed or something! 

The upstairs was only accessible from the storage room in back of the store until the mid 60's, when the Tators built stairs going up along the living room wall.  I think that they made different access arrangements as we grandchildren became more numerous.  Also, because somebody once broke into the store in the middle of the night by breaking the glass on the front door to get in. That was scary, luckily they were the only ones home at the time.  Grandpa grabbed his gun and they started yelling.  Nothing bad happened as the robber got scared and left empty handed.

One or more of us kids usually stayed overnight with Grandma and Grandpa T. on Saturday night, if we were not staying at Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's in Junction City.  I remember that the overnight visits were usually on Saturday, because we always had to watch The Lawrence Welk show.  We would settle down to t.v. after riding along in the station wagon, and driving to the liquor store in Junction City so that our grandparents could purchase their weekly allotment of Canadian Mist.  If we were not sleeping upstairs, we were sleeping on the hide-a-bed couch in the living room under wool blankets.  (I still have that couch in my Mom Cave.  That thing was built to last.)  

The Lennon Sisters would sing us to sleep, with songs such as "Something Stupid":

Oh, my gosh, I had forgotten all about those poodle dogs!

So, anyway, it was a lot of fun to stay at Grandma and Grandpa T.'s.  If  you ate all of your dinner (not difficult for us Johnson kids, because we were not picky), then you got to go out into the store and fill a tiny paper bag full of your choice of candy.  If you were a Weixleman grandchild, it was a bit harder to eat all of your dinner.  They were good eaters too, but the brussel sprouts were hard to stomach, and they were Grandma's favorite choice.  My cousin Nanci really wanted her candy one time, and put her brussel sprouts into a napkin and under the seat cushion.  Grandma didn't discover the present until Nanci had gone back home, so Nanci's plan worked for that week.  Now, our Woods cousins, they were super-picky eaters, but they didn't live nearby so they probably got candy regardless of how much dinner that they finished.  The rest of us understood.  We got more candy over time, due to proximity.

The Tators mainly bought their groceries at United Grocers to stock the store.  Grandma had tunnel vision, and at that time, you couldn't get a diver's license if you did.  Grandpa did all the driving, but he didn't mind.  The store was closed on Sundays, and they really did go for Sunday drives on most weekends.  Sometimes I got to go with them to get supplies for the store.  Grandma would get kind of irritated with the neighbors, whose kids would be watching Saturday morning cartoons and an advertisement for a brand-new breakfast cereal would come out.  After cartoons were over, the kids would get dressed and run down to the store, wanting to buy that new box of cereal.  She tried to keep up, but she wasn't that fast! 

There was not a public restroom at the store.  I'm not sure why they didn't just rent an outhouse, but they couldn't let people come into their apartment to use their personal bathroom.  One day a very pregnant lady came in, really needing to go.  Grandma said, sorry, and the lady cut loose and peed all over floor of the store.  Grandma was so mad!  She had to drag out the mop bucket and get to work cleaning up that woman's pee. 

The cash register and counter were to the right of the door when you walked in the front entrance.  When I got big enough to hoist myself up to the counter and sit on top, Grandma said to me, "You can sit there if you want to, but anything on this counter is for sale.  If you are up there and somebody wants to buy YOU, then I have to sell you to them."  I believed her an hopped right down.  You never knew what she would do; she was a character.  It came naturally, with that Hedrick blood in her.  Still, it was better to be safe than sorry and to be sold to some grumpy old farmer.

Grandma would save the "good" money that she received at the til.  For years, she kept a bag of real silver dollars in the bottom of her purse as they came across the counter.  Her purse weighed a ton, but it would have made a good weapon if she had needed to knocked somebody down with it.  After she moved to Eugene, she took the bus to get around for errands, and that coin-filled purse was probably a good idea.

There was tinkly bell on the door to let you know when somebody came inside the front door of the store.  Then you would stop what your were doing in the apartment (or out in the yard) and go into the store to help the customers.  That was fun when were were little.  On the left-hand side of the front door, there were greeting cards and those cheap toys, and miscellaneous items.  After that, still on the left, there were rows of shelving containing the items that little stores do.  I always thought that it was cool to have a store at your fingertips when you ran out of soap or toilet paper or something even more important, like candy.

On the wall past the counter (the one that lined the yard after the dining room window) there was a long, open cooler with a meat slicer.  Grandma would go out and slice us up bacon to cook for breakfast.  That meat slicer was scary and dangerous, and we kids kept away far from it.  The penny candy was on a low shelf a few feet from that cooler, and then there was another cooler for milk and stuff against the back wall.  At least that is how I remember the layout of The Riverview Market.  I miss it, and I wish that I could buy it.  I have wanted to do that on the back burner for years.  But, alas, I am not in the neighborhood any longer so it is a no go for me.  Maybe you would consider it?

This is what the store looks like now.  It has been remodeled and is currently for sale, priced at $230,000.  These photos are from the realtor listings.  Just Google 92573 River Road, Junction City, Oregon 97448 and a bunch of options will pop up.  I sure wish that there were photos of the loft area available because I am so curious about what they did with it.

Thanks for staying with me this far.  I hope that you enjoyed my store story as much as I did telling it.  I last visited the store in the 1990's and it had changed from when my grandparents owned it, but it had not had the full remodel/engineering done yet. 

I asked some Facebook folks what they remembered about The Riverview Market, and here are some of the comments that they made:

"They sold Pepsi in glass bottles well into the 90's!."

"In the mid 70's to early 80's I lived across from Harpers (about 1/4 mile north).  I used to ride my bike there for penny candy almost everyday."

"My family always called it The Little Store.  We lived by Sovereign Lane and my sisters and I would always go ride our bikes there and spend our allowances.  It's were I fell in love with Squeeze-Its, because they used to sell them there.  I was on 6-8 when they closed but I remember being real sad!  They were really nice people.  That was around '96-'98."

"Cliff and Louise owned it in the late 70's - 80's.  Remember the sign?  It said: 'Cliff has worms, Louise has gas!' "

"Wow, I remember Cliff and Louise."

"I remember that sign!" and "I totally remember that sign, I remember when it went up.  Thanks for the memory."

"It did look very nice post-remodel.  There was even a real parking area!  The brickwork is really nice; sorry that they couldn't make a go of it."

And, last but not least:  "I used to buy beer and cigarettes there when I was 16-17...hahaha."  

Well, I'm glad that you didn't tell us what year that was, so nobody gets in trouble now, lol. 

Thanks for helping me out there, ladies!

~ Kathy M.

Update:  January 15, 2015

Grandpa T. and one of the neighbor children - Big Snow Jan. 1969 - Jean Mowry's photo

The Riverview Market in the Big Snow, January 1969 - Jean Mowery's photo.

Riverview Methodist Chruch c. 1957 - Jean Mowry's photo.

"I really enjoyed this post. I found it when googling the Riverview Grocery. My two sisters and I grew up in the little house on Riverview Dr. directly behind the store. Needless to say, out family did a lot of shopping there.

I remember the Traylors well. They bought they store from the Ernsbargers. I was born in 1954, so I don't remember them at all. A local photographer, Dutch Schultz, took a photograph of the interior of the store with the Ernsbargers at the counter. His son, Greg Schultz, has a flicker account and the picture is there under his album "Dad 1921 -- 2001".

The little gas station that you have a picture of was called Neff's store. It was on the opposite corner of Riverview and River Road. It may have operated for a while when I was very young. It closed, but I remember the old fashioned gas pumps. I remember being a teenager and catching the Greyhound bus into Eugene. We stood out in front of the church and waved the bus down. When we would buy a ticket to get back home, we requested a ticket to Neff's Store because that was how it was referenced their map.

Thanks again for the nice post.
 
Barb Diamond



Here is the link to the picture that Barb refers to above:  "Click Here"
 

Also, I guess that part of this article was included in this book,  "Oregon's Main Street, U.S. Highway 99 - The Stories" by Jo Brew and Pat Edwards.  I was quoted in the Eugene Register Guard, and here is the link: It's been a long road ...


This is a Sepia Saturday post.  To see stories of others old photos or to post yourself, please "CLICK HERE" .  To read more about my Grandparents and other stories featuring old photos, memories and more. please look for this picture of me and my dad on the left-hand sidebar and read whatever else catches your fancy.   Thanks so much for visiting!

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.