Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, National Park Service

Discover a place with a deeply layered history. Nestled along the Columbia River in the heart of the Portland-Vancouver Metropolitan Area, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site has for generations been a hub for the exchange of ideas, values, and beliefs between diverse peoples.

Long before European contact, the Chinookan people of the area hunted, gathered, and traded, hosting visitors traveling from every direction. Epidemics and the British colonial settlement of Fort Vancouver irrevocably changed this, but created a unique community which merged multiple ways of understanding and responding to the world.

Fort Vancouver was a surprising place: it was a headquarters and primary supply depot for fur trading operations, but employed more people at agriculture than any other activity. It was a large corporate monopoly that kept order and stability by employing many different ethnic groups. It was a British establishment, but the primary languages were Canadian French and Chinook Jargon. It represented British territorial interests, yet made American settlement in the Pacific Northwest possible. Even those who wished it gone praised the hospitality and assistance they found there.

The subsequent U.S. Army post at the site, Vancouver Barracks, was equally surprising. Its goal was to provide for peaceful settlement of the Oregon Country, yet it did so, in part, by battling and dispossessing the established inhabitants. For more than 150 years it housed and supported thousands of soldiers and their families, yet it also incarcerated Native American families and Italian prisoners of war. Through two world wars, conflict abroad bred innovation and industry here.

Today, it is a national park where we help visitors make personal connections to the people, places, stories, and collections of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.