The restoration of the historic gas station at the west end of the Troutdale bridge was originally the work of Jack Glass, a fishing guide, who set up a small business there as Jack’s Snack N’ Tackle. (Now Sugarpine Drive-in.)
The little station with its canopy was built about 1930 to serve motorists on the Historic Columbia River Highway. Even older was a row of tourist cabins along the river bank.
Ruby and Elliot Staten were the proprietors of the station and cabins for 40 years. For many years the couple lived in the station, a bed on one side and the kitchen on the other.
"You'd be surprised how many people we entertained in that place," she once said.
In 1948 during the Vanport Flood, the service station sat alone above flood waters that backed up into and overflowed the Sandy. Ruby Staten delivered the newspapers to her neighbors by canoe.
Once the flood was over, she remodeled her tourist cabins, painting and papering them, and was again open for business. That ended in 1964 when the Christmas flood swept down the Sandy River destroying the cabins and isolating the station.