Vaughn Street Park to the Delta Dome: Portland’s (Real and Imagined) Sports Venues

Many cities build sports stadiums, only to replace them a generation later with bigger and better versions. Yet Portland has a tradition of decades-long use and reuse, from Vaughn Street Park and Memorial Coliseum reaching past fifty years to Multnomah Stadium now nearing ninety. Other ideas have streaked across the imagination of Portlanders over the years, some, like the Delta Dome in the 1960s, reaching the ballot and Paul Allen's Rose Garden coming to fruition in the 1990s.

So why were some stadiums built while others failed to materialize? Why were stadiums built where they were and not in other parts of town? Michael Orr presents an overview of the history of these structures in Portland, including some never constructed.

Michael Orr is a local writer and the author of The 1975 Portland Timbers: the Birth of Soccer City (History Press: 2012)

Photo Courtesy of the Portland Archives & Records Center

Space is limited. Pre-registration is recommended.