Vanport, once Oregon’s second-largest city, was flooded on May 30, 1948. City of Portland Archives
“You will be warned if necessary. You will have time to leave. Don’t get excited.” That was the non-warning given to residents of Vanport, once Oregon’s second-largest city, before it was flooded on May 30, 1948.
Ask around about Vanport, and plenty of Portlanders likely won’t know much about it. It’s an instructive, essential part of local history, whose racial dynamics reverberate today—but as the city evolves, it’s one that we risk forgetting. This is the problem that the inaugural Vanport Mosaic Festival, cofounded by Damaris Webb, S. Renee Mitchell, and Laura Lo Forti, seeks to rectify.