City Councilors Ban Bathing Suits Water Skiing on Pie Tins a Ferry Tale

he enTennial TISSUE 2 OF 4 C THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010 City Councilors Ban Bathing Suits Did You Know? For over half a century, a concession operated Oswego, New York was not the from 1904 to 1957 on the east end of the lake birthplace or the hometown of where the Villas on Lake Oswego condominiums Albert Alonzo Durham, who stand today. The Nelson family was the first founded Oswego, Oregon in proprietor and they began by renting boats. As 1850. Oswego, New York was the lake grew in popularity, they added tent established four years after cottage rentals, an ice cream and candy stand, Durham’s birth and he never and other amenities. Around 1908 the Dyer lived there. family also operated a boating concession at the east end of the lake. By the 1920s so many Grave Robber visitors on Sunday outings strolled the town in bathing suits that City Councilors banned the In both life and death, William practice. Kenneth Davidson recalled that the Sargent Ladd was a major figure Oswego Marshal “gave tomatoes to boys who in Oswego’s and Portland’s threw them at people parading in swim suits.” history. Ladd opened the Ladd and Tilton bank, Oregon’s From 1924 to 1937, the concession was operated first bank, in 1859, he served as McMillian’s Resort and lastly as Morris’ as mayor of Portland, he was Lake Oswego Swim. In 1957 City staff signed a a major investor in Oswego’s $200,000 option to buy the swim resort. City iron industry, and Ladd Street councilors opted not to pursue funding and the in Old Town is named for him. Bay Roc apartments eventually supplanted the In 1897, four years after Ladd’s death, Daniel Magone, the Nelson’s Boat House on the east end of the lake in 1923. hopes for a public park on the lake. son of well-respected Oregon pioneer Major Joseph Magone and a son-in-law of Waters A Ferry Tale Water Skiing on Pie Tins Carman, was sentenced for Alphonzo Boone, son of the Willamette at the exact spot robbing the grave of William frontiersman Daniel Boone, where Boone had established S. Ladd in Riverview Cemetery and his family were among the a ferry crossing in 1847. The and holding his remains for emigrants headed west to the ferry was one of the earliest in ransom. The case of illegal new Eden in 1846. Along the Oregon. Today the path Boone disinterment went to the Oregon Trail, some members made is known as Boones Ferry Oregon State Supreme Court split off in search of a shortcut Road. About four miles of the and Julius Caesar Moreland, for to California. This ill-fated road pass through Lake Oswego. whom East and West Moreland group is now known as the There is a stone marker at the are named, was his legal “Donner Party.” Soon after north end of Boones Ferry Road representative. Daniel Magone arriving in Oregon, Jesse Van where it meets Taylors Ferry was found guilty and served two Bibber Boone, a grandson of Road placed by Boone Family years in the penitentiary. frontiersman Daniel Boone, Association in 1937. laid out a path from south The impetus for this gruesome of present-day Wilsonville to Jesse Boone ran the ferry for personal attack may never be southwest Portland. It’s hardly twenty-six years until Jacob known, but Magone’s daughter Stars of Cypress Gardens from the left: Ray Morris, Francette died, perhaps in surprising that the path crossed Engle, a neighbor, murdered Willa Worthington, Diane Spencer, and Don Smith. sinister circumstances, in him during a dispute over access Among the first to water awards that made Oswego to the shore, a right that Boone 1893 at seven years of age on ski on Oswego Lake was a famous for the sport. Willa property owned by Ladd. It may had licensed and used for over foursome comprised of Willa organized the Lake Oswego two decades. Jesse Biber Boone be that Magone blamed Ladd Worthington, Ray Morris, Water-Ski Club in 1947. for the death of his daughter. was buried in the Butteville Diane Spencer, and Don Smith. Cemetery in Marion County. Ladd’s body was re-interred After work they skied off the In the early days of the sport, and cemented into the ground. Boone’s widow, Elizabeth, dock of Wallace Worthington’s experiments were tried with petitioned and won the legal A guard stood duty until the Marine Sales and Service, better mixed results. Ray Morris, cement hardened. right to continue to use the known as Wally’s Marina, among others, successfully landing. The ferry operated between State Street and nailed tennis shoes to boards. for 107 years until 1954 when Lakewood Bay. Wally taught Don Smith tried to ski on pie the Boone Bridge was built his daughter, Willa, to water- tins, but this failed because the across the Willamette. During ski when she was fourteen. At tins buckled. After the marina its years in operation it carried age seventeen she became the burned to the ground the four thousands of pedestrians, cows, National Women’s Water-Ski became stars of the aqua shows An aerial view of Lower Boones horses, buggies, and cars across Champion. She went on to win at Florida’s Cypress Gardens. Ferry Road and Lake Grove the river. other national and international The Magone sisters left to right, Elementary School in 1969. Lulu, Francette, and Marie. INDEX SPECIAL THANKS CONTACT US Men in the Furnace 2 Wrapped in Oil Silk 3 Earth Shaking End 3 Special thanks to Marylou City of Lake Oswego Colver, Historic Resources PO Box 369 Flood Created LO 2 Gypsy Camp 3 Venice Comes 4 Advisory Board Vice-Chair, 380 A Avenue Giving Logs a Lift 2 Chinatown 3 Pony Express 4 for researching and writing Lake Oswego, Oregon, 97034 this Centennial publication. Odd Fellows 2 Assafoetida! 3 Monkey and Pig 4 [email protected] Corn Flakes Rocket 2 Westside Story 3 Sisters vs KKK 4 Additional research by Erin 503-675-3992 O’Rourke-Meadors and Iron From the Sky 2 Women Made Histories 3 Glenmorrie Birds 4 Ingrid Ockert. www.ci.oswego.or.us PHOTOS Unless otherwise noted, the photos used in this publication are from the Lake Oswego Copyright by Marylou Colver. Public Library collection online at www.ci.oswego.or.us/library/special/History.htm. 2 -- THE CENTENNIAL, LAKE OSWEGO, OR, THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010 Fourteen Men in the Furnace Giving Logs a Lift The near volcanic temperatures of the original iron blast furnace had been dormant for decades, but the remains of the furnace still provided shelter from the cold. At the height of the Great Depression that lasted from the stock market crash of 1929 until recovery began in the mid-1930s, fourteen men, homeless and unemployed, lived in the remains of the iron furnace in what is now George Rogers Park. According to a November 1931 newspaper article, Oregon state police officers and Oswego city officials forced the men from their encampment. The men had lived there for The abandoned iron many months and had planned to stay in the shelter of the furnace furnace in 1911. through the winter. Mountain-Eating Flood Created Lake Oswego Jane Erickson, an amateur geologist and playwright, who made her home in Glenmorrie, recalled, “Following a well- The crew of the log hoist. Ruben Confer is standing at the left. defined line along the lake’s The cement structure on the riverbank near where the George upper bluffs, as far west as Rogers Park footpath meets Old River Road was built to hoist logs Wilsonville, can be traced out of the Willamette and on to rail cars for transport to the paper another event as momentous as mill in West Linn. Fir, spruce, hemlock, cedar and other logs were any written in Oregon’s geologic put in the Columbia River near Astoria and brought in booms, past: the Missoula Flood. At the i.e., rafts of logs, by sternwheelers to Oswego. A crew of a dozen end of the last ice age, in what men worked what was officially named the “Oswego Log Loading is now the state of Montana, a Station,” owned by the Crown -Willamette Paper Company. Logs huge ice dam gave way. Behind were sorted into loads and then lifted up the bank with the help of it were backed up hundreds a motor. Roy Headrick who started working on the hoist in 1916 of cubic miles of water and recalled, “We loaded six [Southern Pacific flatbed rail] cars. The this immense pent-up volume The wooden dam on Sucker Lake during the flood of 1909. train took the six cars to Oregon City and brought back empties swept down the Columbia to load while they were gone. A train ran six times a day and Gorge to a height of a thousand area, then possibly occupied by succession of wooden dams, we loaded thirty-six cars.” The train ran on a trestle adjacent to feet, eating away mountains, the Tualatin River. After the followed by a cement dam the hoist. On the hill above the log hoist sits the circa 1905 Tug uprooting forests, and bringing floodwaters subsided, they left built in 1921, have increased its Master’s House. Ruben W. Confer served as both tug master and havoc and destruction to all in behind a body of water once size, but the lake was definitely manager of the log hoist. its path.” The floodwaters were called Tualatin Lake or Sucker made by forces beyond human still several hundred feet deep Lake, and known since 1913 control.

Load more