This is just a little bit of history and trivia that popped into my head tonight, about McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon (just outside of Portland). The Edgefield is a 38-acre estate that features lodging, restaurants, a brewery, a vineyard and winery, a distillery, and more, dominated by a Georgian-revival style manor. It’s a fantastic, fun place, as all of the big McMenamins renovations are.

Built in 1911, it was originally the Multnomah County Poor Farm:

Residents operated a self-sufficient environment, raising hogs, poultry, growing a variety of fruits and vegetables, operating a dairy, cannery and meat packing plant as well as working in the laundry, kitchen and hospital.

At that time, not long after the turn of the last century, my great-grandfather was a mortician in Portland, and on occasion he would have to make a trip out to the Poor Farm to pick up the bodies of residents who died.

Yeah, an odd bit of trivia. It’s been an odd week.