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Portland’s not short on odd museums and collections for your viewing pleasure. Between the Freakybuttrue Peculiarium in Nob Hill and Stark’s Vacuum Museum in the Central Eastside to the prop and costume museum at Movie Madness in Southeast and The Skeleton Key Odditorium in Southwest, there’s certainly something for everyone. One can meander through pretty much any neighborhood and let their curiosity guide them to something bizarre, whether it be a found-object sculpture in someone’s front yard or a mysterious old business that’s seemingly been there forever. One place that retains this aura of mystique and allure is the teddy bear museum in Goose Hollow, my humble stomping grounds.
Occupying a ground floor retail space at the Tiffany Center (a 1920s art deco-style building and the site of my high school prom), the collection, aptly titled “Teddy Bears Picnic Museum,” according to its window decals, leaves much to the imagination, displaying little more than a hanging wooden brown bear sign reading “bears bears bears,” much like a neon sign at a strip club reading “girls girls girls.” The space boasts two event rooms, one named after Theodore Roosevelt, America’s 26th president, and another dedicated to Smokey Bear, who’s been reminding us since the ’40s that only YOU can prevent wildfires.
Also behind the steel-barred windows lives a manifesto of sorts detailing the gruesome story of Roosevelt’s refusal to kill an already maimed and hogtied bear on a hunting expedition, leading to a now infamous 1902 cartoon in The Washington Post and the invention of the iconic cuddly teddy bear, and its subsequent symbolic use in his reelection campaign in 1904. This rather bloody, printed factoid is juxtaposed against a light pink sign listing the space’s rules, one of which reminds patrons to “not attempt to feed the bears.” My appetite for more information was left unsatiated when an email response curtly informed me that the space is off-limits to the public and currently not booking tours or events. Bummer. Perhaps the organizers of the annual Teddy Bear Parade in downtown Gresham may be more helpful.
Evidently, a sense of inquisitiveness and curious eyes are all it takes to keep a Portlander entertained, even if your research proves fruitless. So throw on your Patagonia, lace up your Docs, and get out there and explore.
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