Thanks for the great video and the walkaround. My parents lived in Vanport when it flooded. They both worked at the shipyards during the war. My dad was a work, but my mom was home and barely made it out by hitching a ride on a running board. My dad joined those in boats with garden hoses saving as many as possible. Some died in the floating (and sinking) houses and were recovered weeks later. My grandparents had a large house in North Portland and took in as many as they could.
I want to thank you. My grandmother's as well as my husband's grandmother and all of our grandfather's and my great uncles worked at vanport. My husband and I followed this to step in our family historical footsteps. We could not find the movie theater concrete but we found everything else. Thank you for bringing us closer to our ancestors. My grams never called it Janzen Beach. It was always vanport
I had an uncle and aunt that lived in Vanport for a while, during and shortly after WW2. It would be fun to see you tackle the old Jantzen Beach amusement park and history sometime too. Peace :)
I found a piggybank on the bank of one of the ponds back in the '70's. All of the coins predated the flood but condition was poor due to being buried in the mud for so long.
Thanks for doing this. You could say my kids spent their summers in Vanport through the eighties, watch race car at PIR. I had never heard of Vanport at that time.
Really refreshing look on history,and geography.Looks like a neat place to ramble about.Beautiful job filming it! Thank you for your efforts! Came here by suggestion of photographs of old Portland,then a side shoot to Vanport.
Steve next study up on the castles on the top of the Portland Hills. My grandmother used to work up there as a maid during the WW2. She once went down a long stair case which went all the way to the ship docks where people were shanghaied. Going down that tunnel she saw hundreds of expensive paintings which were imported from Germany for protection. Best way for Germany to protect their paintings was under the nose of Americans. The people up on the hill were German. My grandmother feared for her life, but she kept working there because jobs were hard to come by during the war. I believe Portland had many German spies and hidden secrets of the past.
Very impressive footage! I lived off of N. Denver and Argyle street for many years. I love the Columbia Slough and it’s historic beauty. Thanks for sharing!
Building a community on a floodplain ensures it’s eventual demise. Temporary housing for WW2 defense workers. Buildings were on wood foundations and slapped together. Before the war the site of Vanport was seasonal farmland and river swampland
My friends and I used to hang out at the first location back in the 80s when we were teenagers, and we were able to see the race cars on the track from this location.
I believe that your pond used to have a channel which connected it to the Columbia River bringing people in and out from the city for the workers during the war, to work in steel mills and also ship yards. Not everyone had cars back then and they used shuttle barges for the people. That was a big rocky dock for the boats.
My mother lived there during the war welding on navy ships at Swan Island! She lost our home in the flood! That sucked and we had to start all over again.
We use to live in Portland and were told that a building next to us was one of many homes that were part of Vanport. Our address was 7855 SW 67 Ave. Portland . The apartment building just before - where we rented address was 7835 SW 67 Ave. Portland. The Main Street close to us was Garden home rd. Thanks for doing video, we had wondered what happened. Looked it up first time tonight.Opb had "Oregon experience "a segment about Vanport.
The housing at Vanport was pretty much two level apartment buildings. I have yet to see any old photos of Vanport with single family housing. I'm familiar with that avenue and maybe the house was built with some of the materials from the apartments that were dismantled after the war and before the GIs moved in, but if so, the garage in the front doesn't look like late 1940s architecture, so maybe the home has been seriously renovated. As to the housing and other buildings left in Vanport in 1948 when the flood hit, none of those buildings survived. What didn't end up going downstream to the Pacific was eventually burnt.
There is a weird piece of a road that I think might have been part of vanport in the wetlands I found. It connects to nothing but I know how to identify an old roadbed.
Steve next look back at the huge carnival park which used to be high up on the hills in early 1900's. Also, Portland had a huge worlds fair in early 1900's too! boats and trains would take people to top of the mountains over looking Portland and worlds fair. The hills were alive! The old Washington park had a zoo where there were big pits with bears inside the bottom of the pit. there was a metal bridge that crossed the bear pit where school kids could walk across while bears would reach up and try to grab children to eat! I know! I was there as a child! This why Portland created the new Portland zoo. People got killed often in the old zoo!
For real. I helped build those "rooftops" when they installed them at the same time the max line was extended... Get a life and stop misinforming people.
@@jonathanbrumfiel9909 Read something other than comic books and understand tgat the original “authentic” roofs were replaced. The photo didn’t indicate that, leaving people to think they were virtually 100 year old roofs.
@@rdbjrseattle The guy in the video very clearly states that they're the original roofs... That is incorrect. They're sheetmetal art installations meant to "represent" vanport building roofs. Not sure what photo you're refering to but that fact that people are arguing that they're original is about the only comical thing here...
It is, on a map/compass. But as far as Portlanders officially describe it, it's North. NW would be just south across the river, where all the streets are marked as "NW ". Everything on the peninsula and up to the border with WA is considered North Portland.
Vanport also has an important racial heritage. My mother lost her home in the flood. Nicely done.
Just found out about Vanport from a ww2 vet who lived and escaped. Thanks for the video!
Whenever I would go to Delta Park back in the 90’s I would always think about Vanport, OR.
Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the great video and the walkaround. My parents lived in Vanport when it flooded. They both worked at the shipyards during the war. My dad was a work, but my mom was home and barely made it out by hitching a ride on a running board. My dad joined those in boats with garden hoses saving as many as possible. Some died in the floating (and sinking) houses and were recovered weeks later. My grandparents had a large house in North Portland and took in as many as they could.
Thanks for showing us this. Manly Maben, my history teacher at Fort Vancouver H.S. wrote a very good book about Vanport.
I want to thank you. My grandmother's as well as my husband's grandmother and all of our grandfather's and my great uncles worked at vanport. My husband and I followed this to step in our family historical footsteps. We could not find the movie theater concrete but we found everything else. Thank you for bringing us closer to our ancestors. My grams never called it Janzen Beach. It was always vanport
I didn't learn about Vanport until after I left Portland in 1979. Great film.
I had an uncle and aunt that lived in Vanport for a while, during and shortly after WW2. It would be fun to see you tackle the old Jantzen Beach amusement park and history sometime too. Peace :)
I found a piggybank on the bank of one of the ponds back in the '70's. All of the coins predated the flood but condition was poor due to being buried in the mud for so long.
Very cool.
Thanks for doing this.
You could say my kids spent their summers in Vanport through the eighties, watch race car at PIR.
I had never heard of Vanport at that time.
Really refreshing look on history,and geography.Looks like a neat place to ramble about.Beautiful job filming it! Thank you for your efforts! Came here by suggestion of photographs of old Portland,then a side shoot to Vanport.
Intriguing...loved the Heron too, thanks Steve. 🇬🇧
This was cool following like a pbs style documentary on the flooding, thanks
Steve next study up on the castles on the top of the Portland Hills. My grandmother used to work up there as a maid during the WW2. She once went down a long stair case which went all the way to the ship docks where people were shanghaied. Going down that tunnel she saw hundreds of expensive paintings which were imported from Germany for protection. Best way for Germany to protect their paintings was under the nose of Americans. The people up on the hill were German. My grandmother feared for her life, but she kept working there because jobs were hard to come by during the war. I believe Portland had many German spies and hidden secrets of the past.
Very impressive footage! I lived off of N. Denver and Argyle street for many years. I love the Columbia Slough and it’s historic beauty. Thanks for sharing!
Cool video. We walk around their all the time. My dog always wants too swim in that lil lake.But next time we will look for the movie theater.
Thanks for your video... was a very Interesting one...
Building a community on a floodplain ensures it’s eventual demise. Temporary housing for WW2 defense workers. Buildings were on wood foundations and slapped together. Before the war the site of Vanport was seasonal farmland and river swampland
Exactly "they" knew what would happen to the beautiful town. I have been researching where other floods have occured. Engineering!!
I recently learned that over 40,000 people lived in what was Oregon’s 2nd largest city at the time, Vanport.
My friends and I used to hang out at the first location back in the 80s when we were teenagers, and we were able to see the race cars on the track from this location.
I believe that your pond used to have a channel which connected it to the Columbia River bringing people in and out from the city for the workers during the war, to work in steel mills and also ship yards. Not everyone had cars back then and they used shuttle barges for the people. That was a big rocky dock for the boats.
My mother lived there during the war welding on navy ships at Swan Island! She lost our home in the flood! That sucked and we had to start all over again.
We use to live in Portland and were told that a building next to us was one of many homes that were part of Vanport. Our address was 7855 SW 67 Ave. Portland . The apartment building just before - where we rented address was 7835 SW 67 Ave. Portland. The Main Street close to us was Garden home rd. Thanks for doing video, we had wondered what happened. Looked it up first time tonight.Opb had "Oregon experience "a segment about Vanport.
The housing at Vanport was pretty much two level apartment buildings. I have yet to see any old photos of Vanport with single family housing. I'm familiar with that avenue and maybe the house was built with some of the materials from the apartments that were dismantled after the war and before the GIs moved in, but if so, the garage in the front doesn't look like late 1940s architecture, so maybe the home has been seriously renovated. As to the housing and other buildings left in Vanport in 1948 when the flood hit, none of those buildings survived. What didn't end up going downstream to the Pacific was eventually burnt.
My parents lost everything in the flood, but me
Then they didn't lose the most important creation in their life! It stinks to lose all you own,but at least they didn't lose their baby!
Also..smooth parting shot of your Heron? Not sure of most big bird species.😃☘💖
The movie theatre in Vanport, like the child care facility, was open 24/7.
Looks like it was a picnic area, the bricked area with the rounded walls...
There is a weird piece of a road that I think might have been part of vanport in the wetlands I found. It connects to nothing but I know how to identify an old roadbed.
Steve next look back at the huge carnival park which used to be high up on the hills in early 1900's. Also, Portland had a huge worlds fair in early 1900's too! boats and trains would take people to top of the mountains over looking Portland and worlds fair. The hills were alive! The old Washington park had a zoo where there were big pits with bears inside the bottom of the pit. there was a metal bridge that crossed the bear pit where school kids could walk across while bears would reach up and try to grab children to eat! I know! I was there as a child! This why Portland created the new Portland zoo. People got killed often in the old zoo!
One of the roads at PIR was originally roads from vanport
The straightaway.
Very cool
i like your documentaries my dued, but we need to get you a microphone. other than that, great job.
I could hear everything very well actually
I worked on that sculpture.
Did your feet stick to the theater floor? :)
Where exactly are you? What max stop?
There are still occupied buildings from Vanport
Those aren’t original Vanport rooftops.
Craig Colby I mean they’re not original rooftops dating back to the 1940s. They’re reproductions representing flooded homes.
Artwork, nothing more.
For real. I helped build those "rooftops" when they installed them at the same time the max line was extended...
Get a life and stop misinforming people.
@@jonathanbrumfiel9909 Read something other than comic books and understand tgat the original “authentic” roofs were replaced. The photo didn’t indicate that, leaving people to think they were virtually 100 year old roofs.
@@rdbjrseattle The guy in the video very clearly states that they're the original roofs... That is incorrect. They're sheetmetal art installations meant to "represent" vanport building roofs.
Not sure what photo you're refering to but that fact that people are arguing that they're original is about the only comical thing here...
Affordable Housing.... Alas.
Those aren't original roof tops, represents them
Rooftops are reproduction for affect:>)
I doubt that... they look real... why would they reproduce something so random??
Roof tops a little too small to be houses
And they wouldn't have used metal for roofing during the war.
Vanport structures were made with wood only.
CorTen steel replica rooftops.
I have my beliefs on why and how this intention disaster occured, what about you?
Those aren't real roof tops
The last movie to play at the theater was NOAH,,, (Just Kidding)
I though it was in NW Portland
It is, on a map/compass. But as far as Portlanders officially describe it, it's North. NW would be just south across the river, where all the streets are marked as "NW ". Everything on the peninsula and up to the border with WA is considered North Portland.
The temp wartime worker housing in NW was at Guild's Lake near NW St. Helen's Road.
Don't forget about the racism and beatings that occurred there.
Because that's all you newschool racists care about .
TYPE 1 !! 0:11
Cool.