It did indeed. Local author Philip Mulkey Hunt, who died in 2017 at the age of 97, wrote “Beaumont Profiles,” a 400-page history of our neighborhood.
Hunt’s 1998 opus can be found at the Hollywood Library, the Oregon Historical Society, and a few other locations. Because it’s quite rare, it can only be viewed within the keepers’ confines.
We plan to share a number of historical tidbits from “Beaumont Profiles” in upcoming newsletters.
Hunt’s own story is a saga in itself. He wrote his own obituary for The Oregonian, in which he described himself as a
“…lover of life and having fun.”
Supporting that claim, he noted that
…he loved all four of his wives: Becky, Ann, Beta and Doris.
A longtime writer for both The Oregon Journal and The Oregonian, Hunt long covered theater and the arts. He worked on one of Nelson Rockefeller’s two presidential campaigns, and visited far-off spots like the Great Wall of China, the Parthenon, and the site of ancient Troy.
Hunt was born, he wrote, “in a modest house near NE 45th and Fremont…the son of writers Harold and Flossie Hunt and a descendant of Oregon pioneers.” He graduated from Beaumont Grade School and Grant High School before studying at the University of Oregon and Stanford, then going off to see the world courtesy of the U.S. Navy.
But he always remembered beautiful Beaumont.