425 Northwest Glisan Portland, Oregon
Years: unknown date
BEAVER HALL
Research shows that Beaver Hall was in the Beaver Hotel. Per website https://jivetimerecords.com/northwest-category/1960s/ “[John] Hillsbury was the founder and president of The Portland Playhouse, which opened in 1962 in the ballroom of the old Beaver Hotel on Northwest Glisan Street.”
· Listed as the Portland Playhouse in the 1962 city directory.
· It should be noted that there were TWO Beaver Halls/Buildings in Portland at the time. Per The Oregonian, the other was in SE Portland advertisement in the Oregonian March 31, 1962, page 17.
The theater company would last fourteen months per article again in the Oregon Journal as cited in Doug Baker’s column on April 23, 1963.
Per Oregon Journal, November 15, 1961, Portland Players [sometimes the company was called Portland Playhouse] a theatre company opened its space.
However, the theatre company would not open in the “old Beaver Theatre” until February 6, 1962 per mention in the Oregon Journal.
With the demise of Portland Players/Playhouse, it appears that John Hillsbury carried the lease on the property and rented the ballroom/hall out to others. Such as up and coming rock bands.
· Some of the bands that performed at this place during those great years of NW music were: 5th Acid Test. Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour Show.
· The Beaver Hall was a small venue in Portland, Oregon that had many famous band plays there. They included people such as Ken Kersey and his Merry Pranksters holding one of their famous acid tests to the Byrds and the Grateful Dead along with many other bands of the day.
· Per: Lost Live Dead: The Grateful Dead in Oregon 1966-76 (Country Home) https://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-grateful-dead-in-oregon-1966-76.html
· January 1 (?), 1966 Beaver Hall, Portland, OR: Portland Acid Test
The Portland Acid Test definitely happened, but when it happened is another issue. Following Prankster logic, it would seem that it would have been on a Saturday night, but that would make it either Christmas 1965 or New Year’s Day 1966. It could even have been as late as January 7 or 14, but then you have to make sense of the Matrix dates around that time. Everyone seems to agree that there were snowy conditions in Portland, and that points towards New Year's Day. Keep in mind that all of the Grateful Dead/Pranksters crowd had no real family connections, so being out of town for the holidays was no big deal. The exception may have been Ken Kesey, but of course his family actually was in Oregon.
Beaver Hall was a small room at 425 NW Glisan Street that could be rented fairly easily. It was used occasionally for local Oregon rock shows in the later 60s and into the 70s. I did find a reference, however, that said the Portland Acid Test was at a different Beaver Hall on the other side of town:
Many of you will fondly remember Beaver Hall on NW Glisan. But, did you know there was once another place named Beaver Hall near SE Hawthorne around 1510 SE 9th Ave? And, it was at this Beaver Hall that Ken Kesey's Portland acid test took place. City directory listings back up several memories of the event. I love research projects:
From George Walker: "Well, for starters, there was only one Portland Acid Test, in December '65. I don't know the exact date, but I don't believe it was on Christmas."
From Joe Uris: "I was at the famous Acid Test. In fact, I hold the original acid test poster. It was at an upstairs hall; I think off of Hawthorne in a place I’d never been before or since. In those days, in order to have a dance with underage people, you had to have a matron. And they had this black woman who was a very nice lady, but she had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. And they had spiked various things with LSD which I thought was not responsible. The Warlocks which later became the Grateful Dead were there and the movies were playing endlessly."
This lot is for three Beaver Hall handbills. The Beaver hall was a small venue in Portland, Oregon that had many famous band plays there. They included people such as Ken Kersey and his Merry Pranksters holding one of their famous acid tests to the Byrds and the Grateful Dead along with many other bands of the day. The first handbill features headliner Nazz Are Blues Band from April 11th & 12th. Size is 6" x 7. This is by Paul Bassett and the Air Sign Company. Next is another one that features Nazz Are Blues Band, U.S. Cadenza, and Rythm Method from March 21st & 22nd. Size is 5 1/2" x 8 1/2. And last is one that features the Gazebo - Sterling Stem and McFarland Trio on April 4th & 5th. Size is 5 1/2" x 8 1/2". The artist on this and the second one was Bruce Weber who was responsible for many posters and handbills from the Pacific Northwest at the time. These are all from 1969 and are original handbills.
The Acid Test Chronicles - Page 16 - Portland Oregon - 6th Acid Test - Jan. 15, 1966
Portland was the sixth Acid Test, held Jan. 15, 1966
"Compared to that, the Portland Acid Test was unsurprisingly anticlimactic, although Weir had an extraordinary personal experience. At some point in the evening, he suddenly felt as though he couldn't play a wrong note. "I felt golden," he said, as his hands played effortlessly without him in control, or needing to be. It was a humbling and joyful moment. The next morning was just the opposite. They were rehearsing on headphones, and M.G. and George Walker, the Prankster technicians, began feeding them a delayed sound signal. For the longest time, Weir couldn't get anything right, and blamed himself. -- A Long Strange Trip - Dennis McNally - Page 120
"We did a really good Acid Test in Portland, Oregon, that is not well-known but by this time, we were becoming like a really crack terrorist group. We could hit a place, get in there, mess it up, and be gone before people knew what happened. In that one, a guy off the street, a businessman, came in and paid his dollar and got his hit of acid. He had a suit on and an umbrella. At that time, it was still small enough that one person could become the center of attention. He was out there dancing, and somebody hit him with a spotlight, and he said, "The King Walks!" And he began to walk with this umbrella and play with his shadow!" The Dead were watching this and playing to every moment, so he became the music that people were playing to. -- Ken Kesey - Dark Star Oral Biography - Robert Greenfield - Page 78
"There was one more out-of-town tryout for us, the Beaver Hall Test in Portland. The Test itself has receded into the mists of antiquity, except for the vague memory of playing in an upstairs warehouse with concrete pillars everywhere and bare lath and wiring on the walls. What mattered about the Portland Acid Test was the journey toward it.
It began as our first trip together on Further, Kesey's fabled bus. Bobby and I had day-tripped on the bus to see the Beatles at the Cow Palace earlier that year, but for the majority of the band it was a first. Leaving Palo Alto as early as possible, by midafternoon or so, we were halfway up the Central Valley bound for Shasta and points north, and then: Catastrophe! The bus breaks down! Never let it be said that the show did not go on! What to do?
We rent a U-Haul truck; we strip the bus and cram all of us -- the band, the Pranksters -- and everything else into the truck. I jump into the shotgun seat up front, and we cruise off into the darkening storm of the worst blizzard in years: over the Siskiyou Mountains in the dead of night. Neal pressing ever onward, the rhythm of the falling snow sweeping through the headlights, sliding in and out of synch with the music piped into the cockpit by means of our patented two-way distort-o-phonic communication system, set up so that those in the back could also hear Neal's multiple personalities conversing with one another. If ever the magic of the open road was distilled into a single experience, it was, for me, that night sitting next to Neal, hurtling into the dazzling play of light and shade on the whirling snow with his voice turning every sentence into a poem, all sensory input synched up (or sometimes not, and that's good too) with the rhythm of the wipers and whatever music happened to randomly penetrate our awareness.
Upon our return from Portland, all the scuttlebutt was ablaze with the plans for the "Big One"; the Trips Festival, to take place in San Francisco's Longshoreman's Hall." -- Searching for the Sound - Phil Lesh - Pages 72-73
1965 or 1966
· The ballroom/hall was rented to the Pruitts of Portland, a newly formed gay group who put on a drag ball.
Per the Alternative Connection, page 19, October 1991 – A BIT OF COURT HISTORY by Philip Staley: Things became too quiet following the demise of Transylvania, so without warning, in a little house secluded amongst the trees of Upper College Drive, another group of ambitionists plotted to take Portland out of the twilight into the Day. The Pruitts emerged and began plans for a Halloween Ball to be held at– Beaver Hall, entitled “Road to Ruin” and it did.
Where: Beaver Hall [later to become the Tom Kat Theatre] produced by the Pruitts which per the 1977 by W Holman for the Northwest Gay Review in A Gay History, lest it be forgotten. Cited on page 3 of the Special Issue] is the Pruitts first ball/show and it was the 1966 Fall Ball.
Date: Halloween [1965 or 66] [Per 1977 by W Holman for the Northwest Gay Review in A Gay History, lest it be forgotten. Cited on page 3 of the Special Issue and it is cited that the Mistress of Ceremonies was Miss Ira.]
Theme: Road to Ruin
Crowned: Queen VIII Rose [later changed to Rose Empress III Rose]
Per Oregonian May 14, 1966
The Oregon Journal, May 16, 1966
In the same paper, a mention in Doug Baker’s Column
The Oregon Journal
June 14, 1966
Oregonian June 18, 1966
Oregon Journal, June 14, 1966 – another article this time in Doug Baker’s Column.
PER https://jivetimerecords.com/northwest-category/1960s/ “The actress Jane Russell (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Outlaw, etc.) was in Portland doing a series of charity shows for her WAIF (World Adoption International Fund) organization at the city’s glamorous art-deco Hoyt Hotel.”
** As indicated from the newspapers both Oregon Journal and The Oregonian, Jane may have articles that state otherwise. The ‘Cabaret Goo Goo’ was actually at the Beaver Hall at 425 NW Glisan, whereas the Hoyt Hotel was at 6th/Hoyt. In fact, per the June 16, 1966, Oregon Journal the Cabaret Goo Goo was, for a weekend renamed Jane’s Place in honor of Jane Russell. The rest of this story, the fact about WAIF is correct, the Hoyt Hotel is not. [The Hoyt Hotel, built in 1912, was one of Portland’s architectural landmarks and sat directly across from the city’s Romanesque Revival Union Station. The Hotel later had the reputation of a “fleabag hotel”, but in 1962 the former “fleabag” had a very expensive, luxurious renovation, courtesy of Harvey Dick, who had owned the building since 1941. Two lounges were added- The Barbary Coast and The Roaring 20s Room. Suddenly The Hoyt was the place to be seen and attracted both the city’s social set and out-of-town celebrities like Anne Francis, Johnny Carson, Duke Ellington, and of course, Jane Russell.
Russell had founded WAIF in 1955. Jane herself was the adoptive mother of three children and worked tirelessly during the 1950s ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond to help Americans adopt unwanted children from overseas. She and WAIF were instrumental in the passage of laws that made it easier and more efficient for potential American parents to adopt unwanted children whose governments, astoundingly, would not allow them to be removed from the country of their birth. She was an all-around advocate of adoption and spent many years as a tireless proponent.
In 1981 Russell told the Washington Post: “In the past several years, state and federal governments have been spending $800 million on foster care. We’ve got a bill that would do the same job for $163 million. How? By getting kids into adoptive homes. A lot of the kids are handicapped, and for years social workers have been keeping them in the closet. Take them out, and people fall in love with them.”
Again under the website Jive Time Records: “It was no surprise that Russell, as producer, chose the glamorous Hoyt Hotel to hold her charity shows, that she called ‘Cabaret Goo Goo’.* Jane had requested a “Beatles-type” band to fill a slot in her nightly show. ‘The Fugitives’ were chosen to play. Before long they were doing two sets a night for ‘Cabaret Goo Goo’ and soon were put into the feature spot of the show. One night after Jane Russell became aware of two aspiring dancers, Ann Scott and Rhonda Anderson, were in the house, she urged them to join the band onstage for one set. In 2007 Ann wrote “Everyone loved it and the group became “The Fugitives with Ann & Rhonda”. We traveled throughout Oregon, Washington, California and British Columbia”… sometimes as ‘The Fugitives with The Jet Set Girls’.
During the stint with Jane Russell’s WAIF benefits the annual Rose Festival was in progress. Several years earlier the Rose Festival had started hosting an annual ‘Teen-Age Fair’. It’s estimated that in 1966 over 100,000 people attended the event which was held over 10 days. Each year the event culminated with a ‘Battle of The Bands’ at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum. Each of the 96 bands involved that year had gone through three preliminaries. ‘The Fugitives’ were one of those bands and ended up in the final three. On a night in June 1965, in front of 21,00 people The Fugitives played their set and were awarded as the overall winners.”
Between 1967-69 little is known about the venue. The next known event or events were in 1969. The following poster states the “Grand Opening” of the Beaver Hall. Maybe as a music venue and should have been stated as a “Re-Grand Opening”? Poster from Poster Trip
June 6 & 7, 1969 featuring Roxy - Portland Zoo [per Ebay]
1971 Above is an announcement in The Fountain newspaper April 2-9, 1971 Kalendar section.
The Beaver Hall then became the Old Chelsea Tri-Cinema which included the Tom Kat Theatre.
1972 In the 1972 City Directory directory, John Tidyman operated at least three adult theaters in Old Town including the Old Chelsea on Northwest Fifth Avenue, the Tom Kat Theater on Northwest Glisan Street, and the New Paris Theater on Southwest Third Avenue.
Photo to the left is from page 14 Northwest Gay Review June 1977.
Sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s, the portion of the building that housed Beaver Hall was torn down to make way for a parking lot as shown in photos taken in 2022.