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Port of Portland/Commission of Public Docks Photographs Collection, 1911-1997

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Port of Portland (Or.)
Title
Port of Portland/Commission of Public Docks Photographs Collection
Dates
1911-1997 (inclusive)
1913-1942 (bulk)
Quantity
20.61 cubic feet, (8,970 photographs, 19 photomechanical prints, approx. 5,300 negatives, and other manuscript material in 39 document boxes, 21 oversize boxes, 3 oversize folders, and 6 photograph albums)
Collection Number
Org. Lot 10
Summary
Photographs extensively document facilities and activities of the Port of Portland, which was established by the Oregon Legislature in 1892, and the Commission of Public Docks, which was established by the City of Portland in 1910. The photographs reflect the activities of the two agencies as they operated in tandem to deepen and maintain shipping channels, provide marine terminals and related services, promote trade, and build and maintain airports and industrial parks. The commission was merged into the Port of Portland in 1970.
Repository
Oregon Historical Society Research Library
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR
97205
Telephone: 503-306-5240
Fax: 503-219-2040
libreference@ohs.org
Access Restrictions

The collection is open to the public.

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Funding for preparing this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
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Historical Note

With improvements to navigation on the Columbia, Willamette, and Snake rivers and many rail lines converging on Portland, the city’s harbor became an important shipping point, especially for agricultural and lumber producers in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The Port of Portland and the Commission of Public Docks built and maintained much of the infrastructure that made that possible.

The Port of Portland was created by the Oregon Legislature in 1891, and the Commission of Public Docks (also commonly referred to as the Dock Commission) was established by the City of Portland in 1910, each with similar statutory powers over Portland harbor and shipping channels on the Willamette and Columbia rivers. Until the two merged in 1970, however, they generally operated in tandem, each with a different focus. The Port of Portland took responsibility for deepening and maintaining shipping channels, constructing and operating dry docks, providing towage and pilot services, building airports, and reclaiming lands for industrial use. The Commission of Public Docks focused primarily on construction and operation of docks and terminals.

Less than a decade after the Commission of Public Docks was established, the Portland City Council authorized a study to formulate plans for waterways, public terminals, and water sites. In 1921, the committee suggested consolidation of the Port of Portland and Dock Commission, as well as dredging a new Willamette River shipping channel west of Swan Island to replace the difficult-to-navigate channel east of the island. Voters in Portland and Multnomah County favored the consolidation, but it lost by 2,000 votes in the statewide initiative that would have authorized the Port of Portland to acquire Dock Commission property and assume its bonded indebtedness. One result of the failure to achieve consolidation was sale of the Dock Commission’s newly-completed Municipal Dry Docks to the Port of Portland in 1923. The Port achieved another committee recommendation as it dredged a new shipping channel west of Swan Island during the next decade. Efforts to consolidate the Port and the Dock Commission continued but were torpedoed primarily by inability to agree on which body should absorb the other. Consolidation of the Dock Commission into the Port of Portland finally was achieved in 1970.

The Dock Commission opened Terminal No. 1 on Northwest Front Avenue near Union Station in 1913. With various expansions, notably one completed in 1938, Terminal No. 1 included the main Quay Dock facing the river, Piers A and B, Slips No. 1 and 2, a lumber dock, Warehouse No. 1, a 100-ton sheer leg derrick, and automobile and machine shops. Terminal No. 2 at the foot of Southeast Washington Street on the other side of the river was completed in 1915. Its two-level quay dock generally served riverboat and coastwise traffic. Terminal No. 3 at the foot of North Alta Street on the east bank of the Willamette was constructed by the City of St. Johns in 1910. The Dock Commission obtained it in 1915, when St. Johns was incorporated into the City of Portland. The small terminal facility served the coastal trade for a few years, but it was soon closed and then demolished in 1929 to make way for construction of the St. Johns Bridge.

Construction was completed in 1919 on the first phase of Terminal No. 4 on a 212-acre site on the east bank of the Willamette, located north of the St. Johns Bridge. Under Dock Commission ownership, it grew to include many piers, with deep-water slips, rail trackage for direct transfer to and from ships, a grain elevator with capacity of 2 million bushels, a ventilated fruit storage warehouse and cold storage unit, a bulk vegetable oil/molasses storage plant, coal bunkers, Administration Building, Welfare Building, Lunch Rooms, Power Plant, Repair Shop, and various other facilities. As of 2004, a greatly-expanded Terminal 4 continued to be the international shipping center of Portland harbor.

Initially, the primary purpose for creation of the Port of Portland was dredging and maintaining a 25-foot channel in the Portland harbor on the Willamette north to the Columbia and on the Columbia to the sea, including the Columbia Bar. Later, this became the least of its functions as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assumed primary responsibility for channel deepening and maintenance, but the Port provided dredging equipment as required by the Corps, leased its dredges for various public and private projects, and conducted dredging and filling projects in the vicinity of Portland. This work moved the shipping channel from the east side to the west side of Swan Island, filled the Rivergate Industrial District at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia, and filled Swan Island for construction of the city’s first municipal airport, which was begun in 1926. As planes increased in size, it soon became inadequate, and the port filled a site along the Columbia River to create the Portland-Columbia Airport, which opened in 1940. With a new 8,800-foot runway in 1951, the airport could handle international flights and became Portland International Airport. The Port acquired the Troutdale and Hillsboro airports and continued to add more industrial districts.

During World War II, the federal government took over the Dock Commission’s terminals and the Port’s dry docks and Swan Island facilities for wartime shipping and shipbuilding needs. It took a few years after the war to return to full peace-time operations under Dock Commission and Port of Portland control.

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Content Description

Photographs extensively document facilities and functions of the Port of Portland and Commission of Public Docks, primarily during the period when they operated as separate agencies. Very few include identified people, but many show people at work. The Dock Commission group provides extensive coverage of Portland harbor, bridges, and shipping, including many privately-owned docks. The Dock Commission amassed a large collection of quality 8-inch by 10-inch prints and their negatives, produced primarily by Angelus Studio, and maintained them through an in-house numbering and indexing system for use in annual reports and other publications. The Port of Portland did most of it's own photography, primarily in 3-inch by 5-inch format, and used an in-house numbering system to match negatives to prints. Many of the photographs were originally mounted on album pages, and the collection includes some intact albums.

The collection includes no photographs of the Commission of Public Docks facilities or activities before 1913 or of the Port of Portland before 1920. Documentation is strong for the period up to World War II, when the federal government took over. After the war, the collection includes much smaller numbers of images mostly in various small formats, probably staff produced. All Dock Commission photographs and most Port images are black-and-white, but the Port group also includes a few color prints. Also included are some black-and-white prints made at the Oregon Historical Society from original negatives.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

The Oregon Historical Society is the owner of the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from the Research Library prior to any reproduction use. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from the copyright owners.

Preferred Citation

Port of Portland/Commission of Public Docks Photographs Collection, Org. Lot 10, Oregon Historical Society Research Library

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into the following subgroups and series:

  • Subgroup 1: Commission of Public Docks, 1911-1960
    • Series A: Index to Photographs and Printing Plates, 1912-1951
    • Series B: Municipal Terminal No. 1, 1913-1957
    • Series C: Municipal Terminal No. 2, 1915-1950
    • Series D: Municipal Terminal No. 3, 1919-1922
    • Series E: Municipal Terminal No. 4, 1917-1960
    • Series F: Municipal Boat Landing, 1913-1941
    • Series G: Portland Harbor and Shipping, 1918-1956
    • Series H: Other Ports and Port Organizations, 1919-1944
    • Series I: Proposed Plans for Harbor Improvements, 1912, 1920
    • Series J: General Photographs, 1911-1960
    • Series K: Dry Docks and Shipyards, circa 1916-circa 1960
  • Subgroup 2: Port of Portland, 1920-1997
    • Series A: Job Files, 1920-1937
    • Series B: Subject Files, 1920-1938
    • Series C: Other Unclassified Images and Albums, 1922-1997

Custodial History

The Commission of Public Docks photographs collection was donated to the Oregon Historical Society under the direction of commission chairman, Capt. Homer Shaver, in 1962. At that time, the Oregon Historical Society was serving as the City of Portland Archives. The Port of Portland collection was donated to the Historical Society in increments between 1970 and 1998.

Acquisition Information

Gift of City of Portland, 1962. Gift of Port of Portland: 1970, 1992, and 1998 (Accession numbers 11398, 11561, 20927, 23626, and 23652).

Processing Note

Original order was maintained whenever possible or known. Many but not all negatives have been matched to prints.

Separated Materials

Some Commission of Public Docks records, which were given to the Oregon Historical Society when it served as the City of Portland archives, are in the Research Library's Manuscript Collections (Mss 2279). A Port of Portland collection of manuscripts, charts, and drawings that had been donated to the Oregon Historical Society was returned to the Port as part of an agreement that maintained the photographs collection at the Historical Society.

Bibliography

Port of Portland Traffic Department and Commission of Public Docks. The World's Sea Lanes Lead to the Port of Portland. Portland, Or.: Port of Portland, 1922. (In Research Library, call number 386.8 P839.)

Related Materials

Although some records of the Dock Commission were transferred to the Port of Portland at the time of the merger, most of the Dock Commission Records are maintained at the City of Portland's Stanley Parr Archives & Records Center, which also has a small quantity of related photographs. The Port of Portland maintains its own archives. The Oregon Historical Society Research Library has many related materials, including books, maps, manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, and vertical files, which may be accessed through the online catalog and onsite card catalogs.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.

Finding aid prepared by Sharon M. Howe
2004

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