Northeast of Portland is Washougal, Washington, location of one of the Pendleton Woolen Mills .
To get there, go north, across the Columbia River.

Turn right and follow the river about 9 and a half miles to Washougal…

where you’ll see the Pendleton Woolen Mills sign.

Turn left.

There you’ll find the outlet store.

It’s where I go to buy wool for my heavier coats and jackets.

Pendleton started in the 1860’s when Mr. Thomas Kay arrived in Oregon.

Kay’s daughter Fannie, who had learned the mill business from her father, married retailer C. P. Bishop. Manufacturing and merchandising, the perfect formula for success.

In 1909 the Bishop’s bought a defunct woolen mill in Pendleton, Oregon. They constructed a more efficient building and resumed production of Native American trade blankets and robes that the mill was known for.

The blankets were prized in the Native American community, from the Nez Perce in the Northwest to the Hopi and Navaho.

The outlet store has displays from its history, it’s like a museum.

Pendleton still buys raw wool, spins, dyes and weaves it into fabric, then manufactures blankets and clothing….

it starts with the stuff from a sheep and ends up with a plaid shirt.
Amazing, don’t you think?

They have old machines around, like this one for carding wool.

Or this one, some sort of a sewing machine?

And woolen items for sale!

Piles of their beautiful blankets.

And plaid shirts!

By the 1920’s Pendelton was also weaving wool shirting.

Racks of plaid shirts. For men,

and women!

All still woven by them, either in the buildings you can just see out this window, [behind this strange mechanical contraption] or in their mill in Pendleton, Oregon.

Which they proudly declare on their labels.
Even solid black, which is what I’m after,

and which they have in abundance.

My take for the day. Enough for many swing coats and pants.

And at the end of the day, home, back across the Columbia to Portland.