When Portland's Record Stores Were Destinations

A box of old negatives brought back the music, the memories, and a few corners of Portland that have long since changed.

When I scanned several thousand negatives and slides last year, I wasn’t always sure what I’d find.

Most of the photos were experiments from my early days with a camera—lots of attempts, plenty of failures, and the occasional surprise.

One thing that surprised me was discovering a small trove of photographs of places that have changed—or disappeared entirely. Among them were several Portland record stores and head shops from the mid-1970s, photographed while I was a Radio Communications student at Mt. Hood Community College.

Here’s a small collection that I titled Portland Record Stores, Head Shops. Most of the images are exterior, but there are a couple from inside that reveal some detail of what they looked like back then.

Let's start with a few head shops. They were a regular stop for my small circle of friends and me. Cannabis was still illegal, of course, but that didn't stop these stores from selling just about everything except the weed itself.

One of Portland's Head Shops in the mid-70s

One record store I made it to just a couple of times was a bit of a drive: from Gresham, through downtown Portland and out towards Beaverton, you’d find Everybody’s Records. Here’s the only shot I have of it:

But the place we went to most was Music Millennium, at 32nd and Burnside (that link goes to a fascinating and very informative article about the store).

Music Millennium in Portland, mid-70s.

The store opened in 1969, and in the fall of ‘73, a few buddies of mine and I would hop onto Burnside in Gresham and follow it all the way to 32nd. The drive often looked like this:

We’d spend an hour or more just pawing through records, digging on the sounds coming out of the store speakers, soaking up the smell of incense (or whatever it was), and being amazed at the incredible collection. I was fascinated by the wide choices of imports, which were not readily available anywhere else. No doubt, a number of those imports are still in my collection.

Inside Music Millennium

Looking back, I wish I’d had the foresight to make a project out of photographing every record store and head shop I could find. There would have been dozens more images—and an even richer record of a Portland that’s largely disappeared.

Still, I’m grateful these few negatives survived. They’ve become little windows into a city and a time in my life that I can still visit from time to time.