Q – What are the metal rings in old Montavilla curbs?
A – Ringbolts, as these were originally called, were placed in Portland sidewalk curbs in the early 20th century as hitches for horses to stop them from running off. Individual horse owners needed hitches for private use. Merchants needed them even more for home deliveries of fuel supplies, ice, groceries, etc.
The iron ringbolts had the advantage of being more durable than the old wooden hitching posts and racks, which could decay. They also offered alternatives to the unfortunate use of trees as tethers. Tree-tethered horses liked to snack on tree bark, often damaging valued shade trees. Tree-hitching became illegal in Portland in 1877, yet as the Oregonian article below shows, it was still a problem in 1889.
And still a problem in 1905, despite the threat of arrest or fines.
Ringbolts became mandatory in new sidewalk curbs in 1902 when Portland City Engineer William B. Chase ordered concrete contractors to embed one ringbolt for every 25 feet of curb. Portland ordinances specified the exact dimensions and form of the ringbolts. (This law would apply in Montavilla after it was annexed to Portland in 1906.)
Today, we can see only the top portion of the ring bolts, as the lower part is embedded in concrete.
As a means of secure attachments, ringbolts have a long history. The Oxford English Dictionary identifies 1599 as the earliest written example of the term ringbolt used to describe a means of fastening ships to walls.
Ringbolts, by the way, are still manufactured today for nautical uses.
When automobiles replaced horses and hitching rings were no longer needed, they came to be seen by some as a public nuisance. In August 1938, for example, a man stumbled over a hitching ring in Portland and fractured his ankle bone. Portland City Attorney Lyman E. Lattourette told the City Council that these relics posed a public safety hazard and should be removed. He advised homeowners to bid their rusty hitching rings farewell and to chisel them away. One Oregonian reader, Spencer Akers, objected. To him, they were priceless antiques and links to the past.
But others saw them as useless. Oregon Journal columnist Dick Fagan, for example, ridiculed ringbolts in his “Mill Ends” columns of the 1960s. He called them “the most useless things in the city.” In 1967, he came across a jeep and a motorboat hitched to the rings.
As Fagan was proclaiming ringbolts useless, Portland contractors were removing the hitching rings when replacing or repairing curbs. The tide of destruction shifted in 1978 when a Ladd’s Addition homeowner, Paul C. Paulsen, objected to the removal of his horse ring. To him, they were not useless. They were pleasant reminders of the past.
City Commissioner Connie McCready was also alarmed to learn about the ringbolt removals. She created a policy allowing homeowners to request replacement of the rings after curb work was completed, with a $5 fee to cover the additional labor. Thanks to Paulse and McCready, Portland is one of the few cities with an abundance of antique ringbolts.
Portland’s reputation as a city of many ringbolts was augmented by Scott Wayne Indiana’s Portland Horse Project, launched in 2005. At that time, he began attaching miniature toy horses to ringbolts in Portland’s older neighborhoods, where embedded ringbolts in curbs abounded. The idea caught on, and individual Portlanders began attaching toy animals of various sorts to their own ringbolts. It became a signature Portland idiosyncrasy. Today, Indiana’s Portland Horse Project Facebook page has 5.1 thousand followers. He even has a short video on his website showing you how to tether your own small creature to a ring (https://www.facebook.com/PortlandHorseProject). For more examples, you can find them in Scott’s book, Portland Horse Project.
End note: Do you have a miniature toy animal hitched to your ring bolt? If so, please share a photo of it with us.
Title image of Toy horses tethered to a ringbolt in Montavilla Photo by Thomas Tilton
This is part of Montavilla History Questions Answered, a series of history related articles. If you have questions about Montavilla’s past that you’d like answered, local historian Patricia Sanders will investigate your question. Please email your questions to history@montavilla.net and we may feature it alongside Patricia Sanders’ research in a future.