Vanport was a temporary housing project built in 1942 to house the thousands of people pouring into Portland to work in his shipyards. At its peak, it was the largest World War II federal housing project in the United States and the second-largest city in Oregon.

Vanport is a merging of the names VANcouver and PORTland. The city, built in a flood plain and circled by dikes, was situated in the low area west of I-5, near the current sites of Delta Park, Portland International Raceway, and Heron Lakes Golf Course.

For over 40,000 residents, Vanport was simply home. They came from all corners of the country to contribute to the war effort and in search of a better life, forming an instant community in a city with everything but a future. 

In a state founded on the unceded traditional lands of the many indigenous Tribes and with a constitution that initially made it illegal for Black people to live or own property within its borders, Vanport provided housing to a multicultural and multiracial community.

Since 2014, Vanport Mosaic had collected oral histories with Vanport former residents and survivors of the 1948 flood. We continue to gather around these stories in multi-generational circles to harvesting lessons of hope, resistance and resilience for these challenging times.  

Who lived in Vanport? Watch this interview excerpt with Sen. Jackie Winters, a former resident. The oral history is part of the Vanport Mosaic collection "Lost City, Living Memories: Vanport Through the Voices of Its Residents."

Although built in 110 days as a temporary city, Vanport offered shopping centers, a movie theater, schools, a hospital, police and fire stations, a post office, a bus station, and the only public library in any wartime housing project. 

Housing was unofficially segregated, but school and social life were not. Black, Native, Hispanic, Asian, and white residents found themselves going about their daily lives side by side.

Watch this oral history excerpt from the Vanport Mosaic "Lost City, Living Memories: Vanport Through the Voices of Its Residents"

On May 30, 1948, a flood destroyed the city. By midnight, the city of Vanport was all but gone with at least 15 people killed and another 18,500 left houseless.  About 6,300 of them African Americans.

Many who fled to Portland stayed, forever changing the social, economic, and political fabric of our region.

Vanport was never rebuilt. Once home to the second-largest city in Oregon, today, this area is the site of Delta Park, Heron Lakes Golf Course, Portland International Raceway, Expo Center, wetlands, and a dog park.

Today, only a few signposts and a concrete slab from Vanport’s movie theater are the only physical reminders of the “Miracle City.”

Vanport Mosaic offers walking, bus, and bike narrated tours of the historic sites.

Why was the history of Vanport obliterated from official records and Portland's memory? Listen to Prof. James Harrison, Vanport historian, in this interview excerpt. 

Vanport former residents and flood survivors, now in their 80s and 90s, have kept this history alive. Since 2014 they have collaborated with Vanport Mosaic “memory activists” to record their experience.