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‘City of Roses’
Volume XLV
Number 45
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • November 9, 2016
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
An Oregon Historical Society photo shows children refugees from Vanport after the devastating flood in 1948.
A new one-hour documentary tells
the story of Vanport, which, in the ear-
ly 1940s, was the second largest city
in the state before a catastrophic flood
destroyed the town located on the del-
ta between north Portland and the Co-
lumbia River.
“Vanport” will air Monday, Nov.
14 at 9 p.m. as Oregon Public Broad-
casting kicking off an 11th season of
Oregon Experience with first-hand
accounts and personal stories of the
people who lived in Vanport and rare-
ly-seen archival film and images.
Vanport City was created out of a
national emergency and it was signif-
icant for housing a large migration of
black residents into the Northwest.
World War II had turned the Portland/
in
Life Vanport
New documentary features
stores from survivors
Vancouver area into a major ship-
building hub and many thousands of
workers from across the country be-
gan arriving for jobs in the shipyards.
The Northwest migration caused a
major housing shortage in the Port-
land area.
By early 1942, nationally-known
industrialist Henry J. Kaiser was op-
erating three of the area’s largest ship-
yards. To help meet the demand for
housing, Kaiser built the largest single
federal wartime housing project in the
country. Although located on a flood
plain and surrounded by dikes and le-
vees, Vanport was conveniently close
to the shipyards. During its heyday, it
was home to about 42,000 workers and
their children.
The city was built quickly and never
meant to be permanent. The crowded
apartment buildings were prefabricated
and lacked cement foundations. It was
a noisy 24-hour city, but offered pro-
gressive services for blacks and whites,
including grade schools that operated
year round and 24-hour day care for
preschool children.
As the war came to a close, the ship-
yards laid workers off. Many of the
transplanted workers decided to stay in
the Northwest. In 1948, about 18,500
people still lived in the city, and about
one-third of the population was Afri-
can American.