In the early years of the century, slough areas were primarily wetlands. In the 1910s and 20s, Oregon, with help from the federal government, created local drainage districts which installed dikes and levies to reclaim land. Image courtesy of Nancy Hoover

   This land is extremely fertile due to past flooding of the Columbia River. Farming was the main activity along the slough from the 1920s until the 1980s when industrialization increased.

There was nothing but just lakes, willows, and truck gardens, well they called them truck garden farmers, they were just little farmlands- patches where they plant turnips or rutabaga or stuff like that, you know? Bill Miller, long-term St. Johns resident

My father grew green peas, tomatoes, and carrots. Because of the sandy soil, he was limited in growing produce. It was quite level in that area and was quite sandy. I cannot remember how many acres it was, although it also had no irrigation. My dad grew his produce in rows. Mae Ninomiya, whose father became a truck farmer near the slough.

Well, [My dad] tried to do enough business to feed all of us. My dad and mother could not speak much English and so I had to work after school...I went to Jefferson High School. I came home and worked until 9 o'clock. The people were very good to us, of course, they found that our produce was the best in the area. This was why we had quite a patronage. You could buy what were called "Darrell Bags" of lettuce, celery, and produce for less than a dollar for the whole bag. Mae Ninomiya

Left. 1948 Columbia River Flood. The Willamette pours into the Columbia near the North Portland Harbor, still an integral part of Portland's Economy. Courtesy of Army Corps of Engineers

    As part of the national war effort, three Kaiser Shipyards -- one in Vancouver and two in Portland -- built Liberty Ships during WWII. Workers for the Vancouver Shipyards, Oregon Shipyards, and Swan Island Shipyards poured into the Portland area. Many of them lived in federally funded public housing projects, built by the Housing Authority of Portland and Henry Kaiser.

Let’s see, when the war came, that’s when they built Vanport City and that changed everything, absolutely everything… The only people that were allowed to rent there were shipyard workers, or managers, or supervisors, or foreman, or people like that. The average shipyard worker, like welder or riveter, they had to live in University homes. Very, very discriminating when you look back on it. George Mitchoff, a long-term Kenton resident

It was built over night and it was built to house shipyard workers, and it was you know laid out with streets and cross sections, and they had a store, and cafe, and one thing another and it was built very flimsily. It wasn’t built as permanent....Of course they[buildings] were all busted up in the flood, but some of them, the construction, they weren’t up to code or anything. They were just very flimsy and, were just a temporary thing and um, I think there were plans were to demolish it afterwards, I'm not sure but, it got demolished anyway, so.... Jim Regan, shipyard worker during WWII and long-term Portland resident

There was a number of shipyards here. …The largest being Kaiser, who had a shipyard in North Portland and they built liberty ships. …And then they built the tankers in Swan Island and then they built baby flat tops in Vancouver. And of course, that’s …why they set up the…City of Vanport or Kaiser yards…I worked in the summertime with Gunderson Brothers who have a yard over here in Northwest Portland. They built navy craft. We went to welding school when we were in high school at night and we were certified journeyman welders at sixteen. You had to be sixteen to go to work, and actually we fudged a little bit. But you know, making journeyman’s pay was really something. And then the next summer I worked at the shipyards over in Kaiser’s in Swan Island, the tanker yard, and then I worked there until I went in the service. . . . Journeyman’s wages on day shift was $1.20 per hour, $1.32 per hour on swing, and I forget what on graveyard, but that was the wage… Yeah, I started at Gunderson Brothers and that was in welding. And the foreman said "Hey, since I’ve been watching you," and he said "How would you like to swing over to ship-fitting. I said "Well I’m a welder and I get welder’s pay, journeyman’s pay so I wouldn’t be interested in becoming a ship-fitter at less money." And he said "No, it would be the same." So I said okay, and that’s what I did, and all that summer. And then I went the following summer to the Kaiser Yard in Swan Island. Jim Regan

The 1948 Columbia River Flood destroyed the city of Vanport, with homes and businesses washed away within days. The flood also reached into North Portland communities, impacting numerous economic enterprises along the Columbia Slough. Courtesy of Army Corps of Engineers

He did not have too much business there, but he had enough. Then, he had sold a lot of beer at the restaurant and he had five pinball machines. His Japanese friends couldn't find a job and they were there from the time he opened until the time he closed working on the pinball machines. The pinball company made it so that my husband's profit was not much but the players made money. He said that some of them made around $75.00 a day. That was more than they could get working, you know. The Vanport flood took away his business, but until then he was there. -Mae Ninomiya

….they closed it up pretty fast. Left a big glut of people unemployed. Basically those people that came from the south and down through that area, they weren’t educated and they were a welder, or chipper or something like that why they were a dime a dozen, so it left a big void for them. Jim Regan

The biggest effect on the economy, jobs, was when the war ended. When the shipyards shut down. That did put a lot of people out of work. Not for long, because the war was over, we went on to other industries. But there was a short period of time when people were not working because the shipyards were not building any more. George Mitchoff

   Until the 1980s farming continued as the dominant economic activity on the upper slough along with some smaller industries. Today the area is primarily industrial, and farms are disappearing. In the 1980s, the City of Portland annexed land near the airport and up to Marine Drive. At the same time the Portland Development Commission started the South Shore Urban Renewal area (NE 82nd-185th, Columbia to Sandy Blvd.) developing properties for industrial and commercial uses. The extension of Airport Way and construction of the Glenn Jackson (I-205) Bridge allowed for increased commercial and industrial land uses.

At that time it was believed that the best beneficial use of that property was for commercial industrial uses which is really what you see with the Airport Way area today… Well I think the single most important development I'd say would probably be the formation of the urban renewal area. I mean that really started bringing money in. Tim Hayford, Multnomah Drainage District Manager

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