Bronze and granite have occupied this corner since 1888, and the fountain in front of you is the oldest public fountain in Portland. Stephen Skidmore, a successful Portland druggist, left a bequest in his will for a public fountain to provide water for horses, dogs, and men — in that order of priority in the inscription. The commission went to Olin Warner, a noted New York sculptor, who produced the elegant caryatid figures that support the upper basin.
The fountain was installed in the center of what was then the city's main commercial district, surrounded by the hotels, saloons, and merchant houses of the 1880s boom. The Skidmore Fountain Block was the commercial heart of a city in the middle of its first great expansion, when Portland was competing with Seattle and San Francisco to become the dominant city of the Pacific Coast. The Saturday Market that surrounds this fountain on weekends has operated since 1974, making the fountain once again the center of Portland's street life as it was in the 1890s.
The equestrian trough at the base still holds water, though the horses that were its primary intended beneficiaries have not visited in over a century.