Collection is open for research.
Transferred from World of Speed, November 2020 (RL2020-058).
World of Speed was an interactive motorsports museum located in Wilsonville, Oregon. The museum opened in April 2015. In 2018, the museum brought in more than 51,000 visitors. It also ran accredited automotive classes in conjunction with Clackamas Community College. In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum's board voted to close the museum permanently after determining that, under Oregon Governor Kate Brown's guidelines, it would likely not be able to reopen until 2021 and that it could not sustain its mission for a closure period that long.
Sources: Articles in the Oregonian/OregonLive: "World of Speed, new auto racing museum, opens in Wilsonville on Friday" (accessed January 27, 2025),
Researcher access to VHS and DVD copies of "From Hellgate to Portland" in the collection is limited for preservation purposes; contact library staff to inquire about access. Fees may apply.
World of Speed collection, Coll 1064, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
During processing, original numbers assigned to items by World of Speed were noted on folder labels.
An additional copy of the documentary "From Hellgate to Portland" is in the Moving Images Collection, MI 08433, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This collection consists of historical and documentary materials previously held by World of Speed, a motorsports museum that was located in Wilsonville, Oregon, in the 2010s. The collection contains papers, photographs, and video. Papers in the collection include the constitution of the Oregon Motor Racing Contest Board; records of the Western Auto Racing Association consisting of rules for cars, prize payment charts, and points scored in races in Oregon and Washington; and a 1925 tourist brochure map titled "Queen of the Northwest Resorts," showing automobile loop routes in Washington state. Photographs in the collection consist of images of the 1905 cross-country race from New York City to Portland, Oregon; hand-colored postcards of automobiles with captions in French and German; a photograph of a woman sitting on the hood of a 1920s car; a photograph of the model for the proposed Delta Dome stadium in Portland; and a photograph of racecar driver Art Scoville. The collection also includes two copies of a 1997 documentary, "From Hellgate to Portland." One copy is on a VHS tape, and the other on a DVD.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.