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Oregon Places Bryan Aalberg Oaks Amusement Park Tucked away in Southeast Portland near the Sellwood Bridge isOaks Amusement Park, one of the oldest continuously op erated amusement parks in the United States. A modest operation, the park currently includes about two dozen rides that operate seasonally, a skating rink that is open year-'round, and picnic grounds. The Oaks has been a part of the lives of many Portlanders and other Oregonians for nearly a hundred years, and many people hold fond memories of it. In 1984, for example, Frederick Bracher remembered his experiences at The Oaks during the 1920s: The charm ofThe Oaks, unmistakable toanyonewho visited thepark, isnot easy to explain. It owed something to thenatural setting,of course; and theChutes, the Barrel of Fun, and the Punch and Judyshows added a touch of the strange and wonderful to a familiarbackground ? the long summer twilightsofOregon, the cool sea breeze rustlingthe leavesoverhead, the lingeringglow in the western sky,the roiling eddies in the swift darkwater of the Willamette below.A luxuriousweariness helped to make theday, seen now in retrospect,seem celebratory and solemn_As we looked back on itduring therainyseason, The Oaks seemed to exist ina timeless eternal summer,punctuated bybrief showers thatsentpeople good-naturedly scurry ing for shelter. Even the autumn decline and closing carried a promise of re newal_Just beforeDecoration Day, the specialOaks Express trains would begin to leave the Interurban Station at Second andAlder streets. The park gateswould open, 252 OHQ VOL. IO4, NO. 2 ? 2003 Oregon Historical Society OHS neg., OrHi 26133 f'mk \! 'C^l-F V' >., ^?f?ff V %m&? ^m-^Mm?^ In addition to the expected rides and other entertainment, Oaks Park offered visitors an appealing natural setting, enhanced by lampposts from the Lewis & Clark Exposition. the mechanical piano of the Merry-go-round would begin toplay theSkaters'Waltz, and The Oaks would flourishonce more, improved by repairs and freshpaint, new rides as well as old favorites.1 In 1905, Fred Morris, president of theOregon Water Power and Rail way Company, invested a hundred thousand dollars to develop a forty four-acre amusement park on the banks of theWillamette River. Itwas a time when trolley companies occasionally built amusement parks at the end of their lines to increase ticket sales during evenings and weekends, when the trolleys carried fewer passengers. A trolley line ran from down town Portland to Canemah by way of Oregon City, and Morris located Aalberg, Oaks Amusement Park 253 The Oaks at an intermediate point in order to increase short-haul traffic. He also hoped that the park would attract the crowds thatwere expected to attend the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition ? aworld's fair being constructed inNorthwest Portland that would attract 1.6million people during the four and a halfmonths it was open.2 Morris chose as the site forThe Oaks a small isthmus in the city's Sellwood District, beneath a bluff on the east side of theWillamette River. The site lay partially on a floodplain and was a difficult and costly place to construct a park. With only twenty-one acres suitable for building, nearly every structure at Oaks Park ? anything that extended beyond the narrow strip of land occupied by themidway ? had to be constructed on pilings.3 Oaks Amusement Park officially opened on May 30,1905, and was con sidered a success. In its first four-month season, three hundred thousand visitors made theirway to the park to swim, enjoy the rides, picnic, and listen to live band music.4 By 1909, the Spectator, a Portland magazine, reported that "going to The Oaks has become the popular pastime of hun dreds of Portland people."5 The park continued to draw an average of about three hundred thousand visitors per season for the first ten years of its existence.6 In those early years, therewere only threeways to get toOaks Park: on foot, by riverboat, or by trolley.The fifteen-minute trolley ride from down town Portland at Southwest First and Alder quickly became an integral part of theOaks Park experience. The popularity of the park and the trol ley ride was so great that in 1907 the railway company added fifteen long, open cars ran to and...

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