"A Swimmerless River"

There was a time, over 100 years ago, when Portland celebrated its river and enjoyed it for all it was worth — swimming, diving, canoeing, and gathering for fun times.

 

Bundy’s Baths, on the eastside just north of today’s Ross Island Bridge, was an important portal to the river, regularly hosting more than 1,000 swimmers on a hot summer day. Changing facilities, a snack bar, diving platforms, docks to hang out with friends and an enclosed swimming area made up the “bath house” and were afloat along the bank, anchored to piers that held them in place.

 

When Bundy’s (originally known as Neptune Baths) opened in 1898, it was the place to go, particularly for girls and women. Swimming and diving competitions took place there and it was the center of gravity for river recreation in Portland. The Oregonian reported Bundy’s rented out 1,300 swimming suits per day in August 1915 and that more than 40,000 people gathered there to enjoy the river.

 

In 1914, a swimming platform was opened in the middle of the river. It was called Windemuth. Reports stated it was “The only place to swim in the middle of the Willamette River, where the water is clear and clean.”

 

Windemuth was a giant two-story floating platform. It was the premier swimming venue in the city, a place for diving competitions, as well as being a popular social scene (imagine dancing at night to a live orchestra on a floating dance floor in the middle of the river).

 

But before long, the river became polluted with sewage and human waste. Record-breaking levels of bacteria in the Willamette were in the news every day. Parents told their kids not to swim in the river.

 

The City Health Officer recommended Portland City Council pass an ordinance banning all Willamette River swimming in Portland. Portlanders got out of the river in the summer of 1924, mourned the loss, and stayed out for almost 100 years.  A news headline called the Willamette what it was:  “A Swimmerless River”. It was the end of an era.

 

An Oregon Journal article served as an elegy for the Willamette. It stated:  “Isn’t man improvident, isn’t he short-sighted, isn’t he destructive, in turning this river wonder that God hath wrought, into a colossal sewer to carry to the sea material worth millions for keeping soil in its original fertility?”

 

From then on for decades, Portlanders abandoned the river as a recreational space due to the ongoing pollution. Efforts arose throughout the 1900s to clean up the river but it remained polluted. William J. Smith produced a silent film in 1940 - “Pollution in the Willamette” that called attention to the river. In 1962, Tom McCall produced the documentary “Pollution in Paradise” that roused people to care more about the Willamette. 

 

Finally, with construction of The Big Pipe completed in 2011, combined sewer overflows were reduced by over 90% and the river was approved as safe for swimming and recreation. Today,  the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the city of Portland regularly monitor bacteria levels in the river.

 

A century later after closing the river to swimming in 1924, the Willamette now beckons Portlanders back into the water. It reminds us of what was lost over the previous century, what has been gained back, and how we must never again take our river for granted.

 

Thanks to Doug Decker (HAP historian) for this review of Portland river history.