Archives West Finding Aid

The Portland General Electric photograph collection (1873, 1888-1966) contains negatives and photographs illustrating company activities, employees, publications, and power generation and distribution throughout much of the 20th century.

The negatives in Series A are arranged by original numbers assigned by PGE based on subject. These include specific stations, substations, disasters, and dams such as those built at Round Butte, Pelton, and Oak Grove. Additional general images include streetcars and trains, street lighting, power line installation, Rose Festival floats, office buildings, car barns and bridges. Of particular note are original photographs of the first station established by the Willamette Electric Company, a hyro-electric plant at Willamette Falls. A majority are glass negatives of two different sizes, 8x10 and 5x7.

The negatives in Series B are arranged by original PGE numbers assigned by year, rather than subject. Topics include dam building projects at Round Butte and Pelton, employee activities and services, stations and substations, line maintenance, PGE divisions, equipment, recreation at sites such as Timothy Lake, and the 1964 Christmas flood. Images used in the PGE Bullseye, a PGE company publication are also represented. This series also includes a large number of employee portraits, such as those from the rural services division,company presidents and retirees. It consists almost entirely of acetate negatives.

Series C includes photographs taken from 1949 to 1966, many of which are also represented by negatives in Series B. A majority of the images include corresponding negative numbers, and most are black-and-white. Arranged alphabetically by topic, they cover a diverse array of activities and events recorded by PGE. Also included are two oversize photographs mounted on board, taken of the St. Johns Bridge and Swan Island.