| These three views of Portland, all shot from southwest of present-day
downtown, show the city in 1867, 1985 and 1999. When C. E. Watkins took the
first photograph in 1867, Portland’s central grid had been cleared less than twenty years
earlier, but the city already had about 7,000 residents. By then, Portland
had established itself as the Willamette River’s principal port, benefiting
from its natural wharf and its position as the furthest point upriver that
the larger ocean-going ships could navigate. In the photograph, forest still
lines the shore of the Willamette River on the east side, and a wall of trees
borders southwestern farm plots. Macadam Boulevard is a thin bright line above
the rightmost farmhouse. Mount St. Helens and Mt. Hood are blurry shapes on
the horizon. Densely packed buildings hug the river’s west shore surrounded
by a perimeter of farmhouses. In the left half of the panorama, the Park Blocks
are discernible as a strip of land running north-south. Can you find the baseball
diamond?
The whitewashed buildings, farmland and wilderness in Watkins’ photograph
contrast dramatically with the modern urban landscape in George Champlin’s
1985 and 1999 panoramas. (Portland’s population was 366,383 in 1980 and
reached 529,121 by the year 2000). In both scenes, much of the east side has
been cleared of forest, replaced by an expanse of business and residential
districts, but, paradoxically, trees fill green spaces within the urban landscape.
The Park Blocks have grown from a barren strip into a green belt. Bridges span
the Willamette River at several points: On the right side are the Ross Island
and Marquam bridges, and at the left edge is the Fremont bridge. Although the
two more recent panoramas are quite similar, downtown Portland’s skyline
of widely-spaced towers filled in considerably between 1985 and 1999. New buildings
in the 1999 photograph include the Fox Tower (shown under construction, just
west of Broadway), the 1000 Broadway Building (completed in 1991, between Broadway
and Sixth Avenue) and the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse (completed in 1997,
on Third Avenue).
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