Columbia Slough Student Work -- Landscape Transitions

Landscape Transitions
by Summer 2000 PSU Capstones Class

The economies of Columbia Slough communities have changed significantly since the turn of the century. During the early 1900s many immigrants moved into the area, drawn by the promise of open farmlands. Wartime industries and their promised work brought more people to the area. The overnight construction of Vanport City transformed the Columbia Slough. So did the Vanport Flood of 1948, which destroyed Oregon's second largest city. In recent years farming has given way to industry and big business. While this shift adds to economic growth, it poses new questions about the cost of development.

Beginning as a swampy floodplain and developing into a highly industrialized landscape, the Columbia Slough area between Airport Way and Sauvie Island has changed vastly over the years. The changes to the landscape began in the late 1920s with the construction of dikes to prevent flooding of profitable farmland.

Reflections of community members illustrate the transformation of the floodplain.

Left. The Columbia Slough in 1915. Courtesy of the Multnomah Drainage District. Right. The Columbia Slough in the 1990s. Courtesy of the Bureau of Environmental Services. Click on map to see full-size version.

Transportation affected the visual landscape near the slough. Prior to the 1920’s:

Horse traffic would travel on a bridge down Vancouver Avenue to Columbia B oulevard, where it proceeded on an elevated, two-way plank road. Jim Douglas, long term Woodlawn neighborhood resident.

Streetcar trestles were also elevated:

The ground was lower in this area, and the trestle was elevated about 15 or 20 feet because the area flooded twice a year. The plank road and trestle were elevated from Columbia Boulevard to where the bridge [I-5 bridge] is today. Jim Douglas

Before reclamation, many lakes existed such as Bybee, Ramsey, Smith, Three Corner, Five Mile, Renee, and Franky Bozer’s Lake.

At Five Mile Lake, there were no trees in the water, there was sand. It also had a sandy beach. We would often swim there. Those of us who were more brave would cross the tracks to the three cornered lake. Triangle Lake we called it. It had no beach, was rocky, and the water got deep faster. Elsie Norris, long term St. Johns neighborhood resident

Jim Douglas comments on the transitions affecting many of areas lakes.

With the dikes and dams, you don’t have to put up with lakes anymore. The dikes now confine the water that use to flood the area every year.

Agriculture spurred land reclamation in Slough communities:

What was known back in the early 1900’s as a "swampbusters act" enacted by the federal congress was basically to take what they kind of referred to as a swamp/unusable land, re-claim it, and put it to a positive useful purpose.

This is also right around the times of World War I, where agriculture was a primary concern to feed people. The population was growing considerably, thus the purpose of the "swampbusters act" was to make the property useful, beneficial. Grow Crops on it. Tim Hayford, Multnomah Drainage District manager 1980-1999

Dikes built in the 1930’s allowed for the development of Vanport City in a portion of the previous floodplain. However, the initial reclamation proved ineffective shown dramatically by the Vanport Flood in May 1948. Ed Washington, a former Vanport resident, remembers the day of the flood:

We were probably up on I-5 for probably a half an hour before I said to my mom, I said, "Mother dear, it looks like a building just moved down there." She said, "You don’t see any buildings move." "Oh, yes mother dear," I said, "There’s water." And all of a sudden they saw just a huge, huge wave. A wall of water just wiped it out. It was under water within thirty, forty minutes. Just everything…houses, swirling off their foundation. Radio towers crashing into the water…It was really something. Ed Washington, Metro City Council Member, 1992-2000

After the flood of ’48, the City of Vanport, Oregon’s second largest municipality, no longer existed. Now, this highly commercialized area includes Blue Heron Golf Course and Portland International Raceway. Transformations along the slough continue. Bill Miller predicts future changes:

You’ll see Five Mile Lake in ten years, they’ll be building on it cause they’re already drying it up. Bill Miller, long-term St. Johns resident