| Original plumbing permit 7/10/1926. Originally contained approx 17 units. Plumber: Fox & Co.
(between 1923 and 1926): Jennie C Crosier to L. S. Martin (land sale)
March 9, 1926: L.S. Martin to Perry D. and Bess Tull (#1042-321)
Unknown date: Bess Tull to William D. and Louise E. Tull
August 10, 1965: William D. and Louise E. Tull to David D. and Maxine I. Seeley (#354-257)
(between 1965 and 1976): property leaves the hands of the Seeleys and becomes property of James W. and Jean C. Bayless
July 12, 1976: James W. and Jean C. Bayless to Verner V. and Helen H. Lindgren (#1114-1360)
April 8, 1993: Helen H Lindgren to Michael J. Grant (#2672-1316)
February 6, 2001: Michael J Grant to Grant Family Real Estate
The building was built for Perry and Bess Tull, originally from Spokane, Washington. Perry D. Tull owned a retail furniture and manufacturing company, Tull & Gibbs. Although built as an apartment building, Unit No. 101 also served as the residence for Perry and Bess until their deaths in 1945 and 1955, respectively. Their son, William, lived in the residence with them as a child, and continued to live there until he and his wife sold the building in 1965. The building passed through a chain of owners that do not appear to have ever lived in the building, until the building was purchased in 1993 by Mike Grant, who has lived in the building since 1977.
Perry Tull was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1860, and moved to Spokane, Washington in the 1880s, where he opened a furniture store in 1892. The store was originally Tull & Dice, but was later changed to Tull & Gibbs when he entered into a partnership with Frank D. Gibbs in 1899. In 1903, Tull & Gibbs bought the Portland store of H.C. Breeden at Second and Washington, and opened a Portland branch of their furniture business. The store proved to be so successful that they opened a second location in a six-story building on the southwest corner of Seventh (now Broadway) and Morrison in 1906. They eventually expanded from selling furniture to also carrying women’s clothing. The building was known as the Tull & Gibbs Building. Some time after the death of his first wife, Linda, in 1907, Perry married Bess L Switzer (b. 1880) of Oregon. Tull retired in 1911, and as a consequence, the firm sold off the Portland store. At the time of his retirement he remarked that he would spend a few years travelling, then settle in southern California.
The Tull’s plans for southern California either never materialized or were short-lived as the Tull’s moved to Portland in 1924. Tull opened a new furniture store, Tull & Co., at SW 4th and Alder in the spring of 1925, but it was heavily damaged in a July 3rd, 1925, fire, and appeared to have closed operations by the end of the year.
It was about this time that he also built the subject apartment building. Tull commissioned De Young and Roald to complete the architectural plans of the building. The apartments were to have “the most modern equipment, including Pembroke tubs and showers, tile floors in the bathrooms, and tile drainboards, electric refrigerators and gas ranges..” garbage would be dealt with in a built-in incinerator (The Sunday Oregonian, July 11, 1926, 26.). After the apartment was completed, an advertisement on page 22 of the September 28, 1926, Oregonian announces them as “Now open for inspection”, citing “reasonable rates” and a “garage adjacent to the apartment house.” The garage mentioned is probably the auto garage at 1400 SE Stark, not the one that now exists behind the building.
Tull was selected as an arbiter in a wage dispute between a union and the Portland Traction Company in 1934. He was later named arbiter in the International Longshoremen’s worker strike.
Their son, William D. Tull was born in 1913. William Tull joined the Coast Guard in 1942. He was a graduate of Willamette University. He was a member of the West Highlands Hunt Club, and had donated a permanent trophy to a paper chase. He died in Virginia in 1975.
One interesting resident of the building was Arden X. Pangborn, who was the city editor at the Oregonian when he and his wife Marie lived in apartment 201 in the 1930s. Pangborn eventually rose to the rank of managing editor. He left the paper in 1941, and became managing director of the newspaper’s partner, the KGW radio station. He was an elected president of the Oregon Advertising Club. From 1955 to 1972, Pangborn worked as the vice president and editor of the Oregon Journal. In addition to working in the media, Pangborn wrote pulp detective stories, writing under his own name, but sometimes under the aliases of “Adam King” and “Philip Sidney”. |
