Delta Park

The mere utterance of Vanport was known to send shivers down the spines of "well-bred" Portlanders. Not because of any ghost story, or any calamitous disaster—that would come later—but because of raw, unabashed racism. Built in 110 days in 1942, Vanport was always meant to be a temporary housing project, a superficial solution to Portland’s wartime housing shortage. At its height, Vanport housed 40,000 residents, making it the second largest city in Oregon, a home to the workers in Portland's shipyards and their families.

But as America returned to peacetime and the shipyards shuttered, thousands remained in the slipshod houses and apartments in Vanport, and by design, through discriminatory housing policy, many who stayed were Black Americans. In a city that before the war claimed fewer than 2,000 Black residents, White Portland eyed Vanport suspiciously. In a few short years, Vanport went from being thought of as a wartime example of American innovation to a crime-laden slum.

Built on marshland between the Columbia Slough and the Columbia River, Vanport was physically segregated from Portland—and kept dry only by a system of dikes that held back the flow of the Columbia River. "The psychological effect of living on the bottom of a relatively small area, diked on all sides to a height of 15 to 25 feet, was vaguely disturbing," wrote Manly Maben in his 1987 book Vanport. "It was almost impossible to get a view of the horizon from anywhere in Vanport, at least on the ground or in the lower level apartments, and it was even difficult from upper levels."

On May 30, 1948, high waters from the Columbia River flooded the city, destroying the homes of 18,500 residents, displacing People of Color who had few other options for permanent housing. Some believe it was due to the intentional negligence of city officials and their desire to annihilate the community of Blacks and poor Whites.