he enTennial TISSUE 4 OF 4 C FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2010 Stray Dogs and Straying Daughters Getting Hitched to a Star The first municipal police with a commanding presence, the Women’s Protective Rock star, film idol, Nobel Prize winner, poet laureate, military woman in the nation, Lola Baldwin appealed to the Division, within the Portland brass, classical composer, Olympic champion, suffragette, world Green Baldwin, retired to Portland City Council. She Police Department. With water-ski champion -- Lake Oswego, to paraphrase Andy Warhol, Lake Grove in 1922 at the pointed out $6,000 had this appointment in 1908 may have had its fifteen minutes of fame. Actress Julianne Phillips, end of a remarkable Portland- been allocated for a dog Baldwin became the first who went to school in Lake Oswego, married rock star Bruce Springsteen on May 13, 1985, in Our Lady of the Lake Church based career. During and pound and promised that municipal woman police on A Avenue. Humphrey Bogart, and his Portland-born wife, after the 1905 Lewis and with half that amount she officer in the United States. Mayo Methot, honeymooned in a summer cottage on North Shore Clark Exposition, young, could help at-risk women. Baldwin chose to keep her unchaperoned women Spending more on stray dogs badge in her purse, not to flocked to Portland to live than on straying daughters carry a gun, and to wear dark and work. Baldwin’s concern embarrassed councilors clothing so that she would be was that they would be prey, into appropriating the more approachable to those as women in other cities that $3,000. Baldwin, however, she was intent on helping. hosted exhibitions had been, was required to pass a Civil Baldwin was instrumental to white slavery, saloons, Service test. High marks in getting a dance hall brothels, amusement parks, earned her the position of ordinance passed that and ragtime dance halls. Supervisor of what became temporarily banned dancing Diminutive in stature, but a new special department, on Sundays and hugging at public dances in Portland. A Lake Oswego parade celebrating Don Schollander’s Olympic victories. Some dancing venues shifted Drive now known as “Casablanca.” Two-time Nobel Prize winner, to riverboats outside the Linus Pauling, lived in Oswego briefly as an infant and spent many City’s jurisdiction. One summers at his grandparent’s house in First Addition. Renowned oft-repeated anecdote is local poet, William Stafford, was appointed United States Poet illustrative of Baldwin’s Laureate in 1970. From 1939 until their move to Agate Beach in resolve. A disgruntled man 1941, Swiss-born composer Ernest Bloch and his wife lived near pulled a revolver on her their son Ivan in Lake Grove. Nathan Farragut Twining, who and she calmly told him to became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President go ahead and shoot since Eisenhower, grew up in a house that still stands in the Glenmorrie her work would be carried neighborhood. Swim coach, Martha Schollander was a stunt on after she was gone. The swimmer in Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan films. In 1964, her son, Don Schollander, was the first swimmer to win four gold medals in assailant left Baldwin’s office the Olympics. Sara Evans, who once lived on Furnace Street, played without incident and was later a major role in the 1912 victory for women’s suffrage in Oregon. Lola Baldwin forged a career path for policewomen such as Lake Oswego’s convicted and imprisoned. Willa Worthington began water-skiing on Oswego Lake as a teenager Doris Volm (left) and Clarice Maxwell shown in this 1964 photograph. and subsequently brought the town fame by garnering eight national and three international titles during her career on skis. Worthington was also a star performer at Florida’s Cypress Gardens. So hitch your Satellites Launched in Lake Oswego wagon to a star. After all, Clark Gable once worked as a tie salesman “Super Satellites” were a type at Portland’s Meier & Frank department store. of monohull sailboat originally favored by the founders of the Lake Oswego Sailing Club. Past Tents Sailboat owners who lived on Tents date back to the earliest cost $1 to rent, while an eight- Oswego Lake, including Tony nomads and are one of the person boat cost $2.50. Nelson Dresden and Bob Young, first forms of shelter ever also owned several ‘tent cottages’ formed this club in the early constructed. Rustic tent and a summer ice cream stand. 1960s. An annual two-day event, cottages, built with wooden The cottages, four-foot wooden the Lakewood Bay Regatta, was sides and a canvas roof, once sides with tent roofs, sat nestled held each August along with dotted the eastern end of the in a pine grove a short distance other races throughout the lake. According to the City of from the rowboat rental area. A year. Whether there were gale- A sailboat on Lakewood Bay in 1962. Lake Oswego’s 1989 Cultural few, heated with wood stoves, force winds or balmy breezes, woman’s undergarment was the club disbanded. There are Resources Inventory, “David were occupied all winter.” the races proceeded. Intrepid flown at the end of the race as photographs of sailboats on Nelson leased the lake shore The Nelson family’s business, sailors were sometimes capsized a sign of protest. In 1974 there the lake dating back to 1900. property from the Oregon Iron started in 1904, was the first by wind and had to withdraw were 78 races as well as social Perhaps with the current focus & Steel Company for $1 per commercial promotion of the from the race. On at least one gatherings of the club. The club on sustainability, what’s old will boat per month. By the time lake for recreational purposes. occasion, women protested roster in 1980 listed 51 sailors be new again, and wind-powered Nelson died in 1923, he had a During the iron era, Sucker the male-dominated races and and 19 types of boats. Later sailboats will dot the lake once fleet of 50 rowboats, which he Lake (now Oswego Lake) was organized a women-only race. in the 1980s, the interest in again. rented out from a concession on stump-filled and unattractive to Instead of a flag, a red-colored sailing on the lake waned and the lake. A four-person rowboat all but curious children. INDEX SPECIAL THANKS CONTACT US Selling Water to LA 2 Street Smarts 3 Heaven and Hell 4 Special thanks to Marylou City of Lake Oswego Colver, Historic Resources PO Box 369 Losing Steam 2 Merry Miss Oonette 3 Pipe Dream 4 Advisory Board Vice-Chair, 380 A Avenue Medieval Castle 2 American Dream 3 Losing Sight 4 for researching and writing Lake Oswego, Oregon, 97034 this Centennial publication. Lakwood’s Just Ducky 2 Television Reception 3 Pinball and Painted 4 [email protected] LO Takes Off 2 $6.4 Million Question 3 Skirting the Issue 4 Additional research by Erin 503-675-3992 O’Rourke-Meadors. PHOTOS www.ci.oswego.or.us 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, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2010 Selling Water to Los Angeles Losing Steam Prior to the Bull Run water from wells and springs. Lillian but residents complained for system that started operation Webster recalled, “There was a years of the increased taxes in 1895, the City of Portland spring down not too far from to pay for this service. Karl considered Oswego’s Sucker the foundry where Oswego Faucette recalled, “I think some Lake as a possible water source. used to get its water and Dad of the first, if not the very first, Ultimately the Portland Water could see that they didn’t have pipes that were laid between Company decided to build enough. They had no water to Bull Run Lake, up near Mt. the Palatine Hill pumping fight fires.” Hood, and Portland were used station, on the riverbank of to bring the water down to the Willamette, in today’s Some townspeople, including Portland. I think there were Dunthorpe. Water was simply Webster’s father and Mr. two pipes, and they supplied pumped out of the then Newlands, superintendent of Portland with all the water they polluted river and delivered to the Oregon Portland Cement needed at that time. The city user’s taps resulting in many Company, advocated getting was between eighty and ninety deaths from typhoid fever. In Bull Run water for Oswego. thousand [people].” A steamboat on the Willamette River opposite the Oswego Landing. Oswego water was mostly taken They were ultimately successful, Lillian Webster also The local steamboat era lasted almost one hundred years. In 1866, commented, “Do you remember the Minnehaha had the distinction of being the first and only when the Olympic Games were steamboat to operate on Sucker (now Oswego) Lake. It was a small played in Los Angeles [this sternwheeler, about 70 feet long, built and operated by the People’s was in 1932]? Well, I went to Transportation Company owned by John C. Trullinger. It was a link the games in Los Angeles, and in a transportation system between Portland and Hillsboro. For the while I was there, they were first half of the round-trip, the steamer Yamhill would navigate the selling Bull Run water on the Tualatin River, at Colfax there was portage to the Minnehaha on streets in huge containers. Los Sucker Lake, cargo was portaged again to the Oswego Landing on Angeles had the worst water in the Willamette River and loaded onto boats bound for Portland.