Harry Garfield Doriot was born in Columbia City, Indiana on July 30, 1881 and Delpha Loy Rouch was born there on 30 April 1886. They married there on 28 September 1907 and at some point (it is not known when) moved to Oregon.
In 1925 Harry Garfield and Delpha Doriot built a log house on their 20-acre property on Bull Mountain (so named when all the wild cattle that had ranged there were killed except for one bull). According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination form, “the rural nature of Bull Mountain in the Tigard area lent itself to the Doriots’ participation in the trend of building log houses in the mid-1920s when travel and recreational opportunities were expanding and rustic architecture was popularized by the Arts and Crafts movement and the National Park Service.” They go on to say, “Various journals and magazines beginning in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries have described a fascination with the American log house. The popularity of the log house and its association with the spirit of adventure and departure from the stresses of rapidly growing and polluted cities provides a nostalgic look at our history.”
The Doriots built it as a guest house for friends and family who visited them during the 1920-1930s. The one-and-a-half story log house features simple saddle-notch log construction with mud and horse hair chinking, a steeply pitched gable roof with asphalt shingles, and a brick chimney. During the 1940s, the Doriots rented the log house to military men and their families. Harry died April 29, 1944, and in 1945 Delpha rented the house to Charles (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1901) and Alberta (born in Pima, Arizona in 1913) Rider, who purchased it in 1947. They had a son in 1954 and they named him Douglas in honor of the large grove of Douglas-fir trees that grew around their house.
Doriot/Rider House in 2007 (Oregon State Historic Preservation Office)
Charles (better known as “Ren”) died in 1980. Alberta Rider sold a portion of the land to the Tigard-Tualatin School district and the Alberta Rider School was built in 2005. As part of the sales agreement Alberta was allowed to live on the property for as long as she wished. She would sometimes walk over to the school and eat lunch with the kids in the cafeteria.
Today the house is the only known historic log structure in Tigard and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Alberta Rider died August 12, 2009 at age 96. In 2010 the ivy and blackberry vines that had engulfed the house were cut and the nearby school announced plans to use the house as part of a curriculum for teaching about the Oregon Trail.
Doriot/Rider House in 2012
Doriot/Rider House in 2012
Location of Doriot/Rider House:
View Larger Map